I am looking to create (as a proof-of-concept) an OCaml (preferably) program that converts PCL code to PDF format. I am not sure where to start. Is there a standardized algorithm for doing so? Is there any other advice available for accomplishing this task?
Thanks!
Ghostscript developers have recently integrated their sister products GhostXPS, GhostPCL and GhostSVG into their Ghostscript source code tree. (It's now called GhostPDL.) So all of these additional functionalities (load, render and convert XPS, PCL and SVG) are now available from there.
This means you could build their language switching binary from their sources. This, in theory, can consume PCL, PDF and PostScript and convert this to a host of other formats. While it worked for me whenever I needed it, Ghostscript developers recommend to stop using the language switching binary (since it's 'almost non-supported' -- see KenS' comment to this answer) and instead switch to using the explicit binaries pcl6.exe (PCL input), gsvg.exe (SVG input, also 'almost non-supported') and gxps.exe (support status unclear to me).
So to 'convert PCL code to PDF format' as the request areads, you could use the pcl6 command line utility, a sister product to Ghostscript's gs/gswin32c.exe.
Sample commandline:
pcl6.exe \
-o output.pdf \
-sDEVICE=pdfwrite \
[...more parameters as required (optional)...] \
-f input.pcl
Updated as per KenS' hints in the comment....
Conversion of PCL to PDF can be incredibly complex (assuming you need it to be generic and not just for simple PCL). We've investaged this many times and in the end always revert to using other tools. We keep investigating as we are a development shop who uses and understands all elements of PCL to great detail. If you are not really familure with PCL it will be daunting task. One of the major issues is that overtime, printers have become, for the most part, tollerent of malformed PCL and as such, creating something that follows the rules to the letter of the law is not always sufficient. If; however, you have control over the PCL, you may be able to work it out with some amount of success.
I don't mean to turn you off of this and I realize that you've come here looking for a programming answer but I have to say, this is a far from simple task and there are no 'standarized algorithms' for this (that I'm aware of).
If this is designed to be a tool to work alongside of somehting else you are building I'd highly recommend looking at these guys:
This is by far the most complete set of tools (Windows) for handling this. There are a few others but, based on our extensive use of PCL and conversion tools over the years, this is the only one that work all the time.
EDIT: Most recently we've been working with LincPDF (http://www.lincolnco.com/). This is also an excellent product with has one big benefit, deployment is simple. Some of the other tools have complex software installations. This solution is very easy for us to deploy as a feature in an application. It's also faster then any tools we've tested to date (at least with the PCL that we generate from our apps which is quite complex as they include specialized fonts and macros).
There is a series of reference books from HP; you could re-implement a PCL parser and output corresponding PDF.
You might start with the "PCL 5 Printer Language Technical Reference Manual" (http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/bpl13210/bpl13210.pdf) . Search HP for more (http://search.hp.com/query.html?qt=PCL+reference).
Or you could steal code or ideas from GhostPCL (http://www.ghostscript.com/GhostPCL.html)
