Page Description Languages and other input formats

This page applies to Harlequin v13.1r0 and later; both Harlequin Core and Harlequin MultiRIP.

The Harlequin Core^® RIP is a PDL (Page Description Language) interpreter that is typically used to drive print devices from Portable Document Format (PDF), PostScript-language or a number of image file formats including TIFF, JPEG and PNG files. The list of input and output formats is extensible in a variety of ways, with some formats being optionally licensed.

The Harlequin Core SDK accepts the following input file formats:

Portable Document Format (PDF) files up to and including PDF 2.0. In addition, the following PDF/X versions are supported: PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3, PDF/X-4, PDF/X-4p, PDF/X-5g, PDF/X-5pg and PDF/X-6
PostScript language files (PS) up to and including Language Level 3 Encapsulated PostScript files (EPS) and Desktop Color Separation (DCS and DCS2)
Image file formats including TIFF, JPEG, JFIF, PNG, BMP, JPEG2000, GIF, HDPhoto

Support for PDF/X-4, PDF/X-4p, PDF/X-5g PDF/X-5pg and PDF/X-6 allows a digital front end to be constructed which is compliant with PDF/VT-1, PDF/VT-2, PDF/VT-2s and PDF/VT-3.

PostScript language files may be used to define complete jobs or as a control language to request more complex operations on any supported file format.