what printer driver

Most people don’t really understand a lot of computer jargon, and the word ‘driver’ is no exception. It could be as a result you’ve done online searches for things like: “definition driver”, or something like that and wished for simple answers.

Please understand there’s no judgement implied in that — if you’ve always been confused by the word, it’s only because it was never explained to you in an understandable way.

Keep reading and you’ll be surprised how much sense it makes.

I have a simple way to explain it that will just make sense for you. You can consider this article an entry in a basic computer dictionary, if you will.

Before I begin, just so we all we’re all on the same page, I’m going to just quickly take a moment to explain the difference between “hardware” and “software”.

It’s really pretty easy — “hardware” refers to all of the physical pieces of equipment, such as your mouse, your display, the hard drive, etc.

“Software” refers to all of the parts of the computer that you can’t really observe or touch directly. Software would include things like a word processor, Internet Explorer, Windows or the Mac OS, plus all of your personal files like individual emails, photos, songs, etc.

Here’s how you can think about it: hardware is like your brain, a physical part of your body, while software is like your mind or your thoughts — the non-physical part of yourself.

Software runs on hardware, just like your thoughts “run on” your brain.

Understand? Alright let’s talk more specifically about drivers.

Here’s the easy way to understand what a driver is. Imagine that every piece of hardware, including your printer, your mouse, etc., speaks a different language.

So one speaks French, another one speaks Russian, another one Cantonese, etc.

So when you plug in a new printer and turn it on, your computer says hi and the printer answers in a foreign language the computer can’t make sense of.

So it needs an interpreter.

And when I say interpreter, I mean just like in the real world, just as if a foreign diplomat comes to the country but doesn’t understand the local language. They need an interpreter to help them communicate with the locals.

That, simply put, is what a driver is — an interpreter that helps your computer talk to a particular piece of equipment. And (generally speaking) you need a different interpreter for each piece of equipment that you connect to the computer.

Understand?

Now occasionally, the driver may be “preinstalled” on your computer (in other words, the computer already has the interpreter ready and waiting in case it’s needed) and other times, it needs to either be installed from a CD, or gotten from the Internet, and then installed on the computer.

But no matter what, the computer needs that driver before it can communicate with the printer or whatever other type of device you may have attached to the computer.

Hope that makes sense.