Lation Drivers Are Based

On the other hand, EMF is usually perceived as being faster because printing can begin after the first page of the print job has been spooled.

After giving this some thought which took me about a minute I decided this was a great idea and got right to it.

Although printing, especially on SBC environments is quite stable, in the sense that not a lot has changed throughout the last couple of years when it comes to the architecture, pathways, traffic flow and so on, I managed to rewrite a great deal (almost all) of the material published earlier and to include a bunch of new facts, figures and nice to knows along the way.

All this, together with the renewed look and feel, freshly created images and the addition of a Table of Contents will greatly enhance your reading experience, Im sure.

Especially since printing is considered business critical at almost all customers I have visited.

While the reasons for this may vary, imagine this, and Im sure youve seen it as well; a user receives an important e-mail, or perhaps he or she has come across an interesting white paper or another type of document, what will be one of the first things theyll do They will print it.

Next, theyll read it, use it as a reference, make notes, theyll take it home with them, save it on their desks and so on.

I know I do it. Though I prefer pen and paper over a keyboard as well, so perhaps Im not the best reference.

In fact, when I started blogging on basvankaam.com over four years ago (time flies), my second article ever was on native Citrix printing and the printing pathways involved.

While researching multiple potential presentations topics, I got more interested in the subject of printing.

One thing led to another, so I wrote various articles on printing, including version 1.0 of the ultimate Citrix printing internals cheat sheet and did a couple of more in-depth presentations, of which one was during Citrix Synergy of last year.

Just recently I spoke to someone who fixed a print issue with the help of my printing cheat sheet, how cool is that.

Although the Microsoft print basics still apply, and Ill discuss them shortly, the way that print traffic will, or can be routed throughout your environment depends on, one: the physical set-up of your machines; and, two: the Citrix (print) policies configured.

Do note that I will only focus on native Citrix printing, and wont go over any of the third -party solutions out there.

Lation Drivers Are Based

EMF stands for Enhanced MetaFile, and XPS stands for XML Paper Specification (often thought of, and referred to as Microsofts less-compatible version of PDF) In the XPS print path, available as of Windows Vista, Windows 7 and upwards, printer drivers are based on the XML Paper Specification (XPS).

A print file format refers to the type of print output an application produces and how it will be handled (routed and rendered) afterward by the print subsystem.

Although considered legacy, EMF is still widely used today, perhaps the most, even.

Because of this, you can probably imagine the number of applications that still depend on the EMF format today.

Though, with the rise of Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications and Windows 10 and Server 2016, Im guessing the EMF standard will become less and less relevant going forward.

XPS got introduced with the release of Windows Vista and Server 2008 and is supported in later versions, like Windows 7,8 10 and Server 2012, 2016.

WPF applications (Windows Presentation Foundation) however, represents a graphical subsystem (a more modern graphics format) for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications and uses the XPS print file format.

As you would expect both formats, EMF and XPS behave somewhat differently.

All in all, XPS is better suited for handling graphic rich documents.

Driver Isolation