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Using Multiple GPD Files in a Minidriver

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Important

The modern print platform is Windows' preferred means of communicating with printers. We recommend that you use Microsoft's IPP inbox class driver, along with Print Support Apps (PSA), to customize the print experience in Windows 10 and 11 for printer device development.

For more information, see Modern print platform and the Print support app design guide.

Unidrv minidrivers can consist of more than one GPD file. This allows you to place characteristics that are common to more than one printer in one or more GPD files, and then to include these common GPD files in a particular printer's individual GPD file.

To include additional GPD files, you use *Include directives, which are described in Preprocessor Directives. You can use multiple *Include directives, as shown in the following example:

*Include: "common1.gpd"
*Include: "common2.gpd"
*Include: "common3.gpd"

The *Include directive's filename parameter cannot be a macro reference, and it cannot include a path specification.

Each included file must end with a complete GPD file entry, and the file must contain equal numbers of left and right braces. Included files can also contain *Include directives.

The GPD parser treats the top-level GPD file and all included files as if they were one long file. Therefore, macros defined in one file can be referenced in subsequently included files. If a GPD file entry is duplicated, the most recently parsed entry replaces previous ones. Entries not duplicated are added to Unidrv's database.