PPDs, Clouds and AFP...

Over on the Lone Wolf I have been talking about the Google "Cloud Printing" nonsense.  Part of this discussion was a mention of PPDs.  In my past PDF-based life, particularly in the age of Windows PPD's caused no end of problems related to generating incorrect output.

I am not going to go into the details of PPDs here or the specific problems they caused.  Instead I am going ponder briefly about their function in AFP - if any.  On Windows a PPD told the printer driver what the paper size choices might be, what the print device capabilities were, and so on.

At any rate, as for AFP and Cloud Printing.  It would seem that cloud printing would be the antithesis of AFP - particularly from the aspect of ensuring that output was printed correctly. 

So let's take a look a the google interface for cloud printing:

Well, this is informative.

I think its crucial for AFP users like banks and financial services companies to see how well organized and thought out this print process is - particularly in the context of "remote printing" (remote meaning I print from the cell phone or PDA).

I think the most glaring error in all this is the "Printer Errors" path.  Now, let's suppose I am out at some offices, say for example Google's offices, and I have my handy PDA on which is my important contract.  Now, in the cloud world I suppose that I could just wave my PDA around and find a locally willing printer for my job - at least one that isn't too particular about who prints to it.

So, with the printer in hand, so to speak, I print my contract.  But, as is often the case, a paper jam occurs.  Now what?

Well, I imagine that on my PDA will be the small unhappy face (the opposite of the "happy" face linked to the ERROR box).  So my important contract is now laying in some output bin - half printed - for the cleaning people to find.

I guess now I have to grab my GPS (or use my PDA GPS) to find the printer - where ever that might be.  Let's just hope I didn't accidentally print the job in the next state.

Enough sarcasm.

I surely hope Google does not try and enter the commercial printing arena.

PPDs do a bad enough job handling things as simple as output bins and stapling.  One can just imagine the agony of trying to navigate a print-style dialog on a PDA or cell phone.

Now imagine AFP bundled into the mix...

I think its probably safe to assume that AFP and "Cloud Printing" will probably not mix - except perhaps in the heads of marketers - for a long time.