Overview of the CUPS Features

CUPS consists of a print spooler and a scheduler, a filter system that converts the print data to a format that the printer will understand, and a backend system that sends this data to the print device.

CUPS uses the Internet Printing Protocol (PP) to manage print jobs and queues. It also provides the traditional System V and Berkeley command line interfaces. It also provides limited support for the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.The device drivers supplied by CUPS are based on PostScript Printer Description (PPD) files. There are a number of user interfaces for different computing platforms that can configure CUPS, and it has a built-in, web-based interface.