Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer driver and an information processing device.
Description of the Related Art
Version 3 printer drivers (V3 printer drivers) developed for Windows 2000 to Windows 7 have been provided as printer drivers that operate on operating systems (OS) of Windows (a registered trade name). A structure that uses the architecture of the V3 printer drivers is also known as a universal printer driver (UPD) that supports printing devices of various models with a single printer driver.
Since Windows 8 was released, manufacturers have developed version 4 printer drivers (V4 printer drivers) using new architecture. As the architecture of the V4 printer drivers is expected to be dominant in Windows to be released in the future, there is a demand for supplies of universal printer drivers based on the current architecture.
JP 2012-43161 A discloses a technology relating to a universal printer driver based on the architecture of the V3 printer drivers. According to JP 2012-43161 A, child drivers are prepared for respective models, and the child drivers are switched in accordance with the printing device designated as the output destination. In this structure, printing devices of two or more models can be supported by a single printer driver.
According to the technique disclosed in JP 2012-43161 A, one driver is compatible with two or more models. However, the respective child drivers in this driver are V3 printer drivers compatible with specific models, and these child drivers are simply switched to cope with the two or more models. Since a V4 printer driver has completely different architecture than a V3 printer driver, it is difficult to form a universal printer driver based on a V4 printer driver in the same manner as in forming a universal printer driver based on a V3 printer driver.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds