Patent ID: 6919966

Claim:
A computer system, comprising: a graphics device interface for invoking a plurality of device driver functions for controlling the outputting of at least text data to be printed from an application program, the graphics device interface being compatible to read a double-byte code used by the application program to identify characters of the text data to be printed; a minidriver containing a characterization of the printer, the characterization including information identifying at least one device font resident in the printer and a single-byte code used by the printer to select individual characters in the at least one device font; a printer driver in communication with the minidriver for receiving at least the information identifying the device fonts resident in the printer and the single-byte code, the printer driver further in communication with the graphics device interface for receiving at least the text data to be printed from the application program identified by the double-byte code; and wherein the printer driver utilizes the information from the minidriver to translate the double-byte code to the single-byte code to allow the printer driver to output translated text data to the printer corresponding to the text data to be printed, and wherein the individual characters of the translated text data are identified via the single-byte code.