Printer terminology in Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows Printing Terms
Print Device: A physical device that prints text or images on paper or other media. A print device can be physically connected to a server, a client, a computer, or directly to the network.
Printer: A logical representation of a print device. For example, printers are seen in the Windows Printers and Faxes dialog.
Local Printer: A printer that represents a print device directly connected to a machine (for example, to a LPT, USB, COM, or TCP/IP port). All processing, including spooling, de-spooling, and job management are handled by the same machine that generates the print job.
Network Printer: A printer that represents a print device directly connected to a print server. All processing, including spooling, de-spooling, and job management are handled by the print server, not the machine hosting the application that generated the print job.
Spooling: The process of the print driver taking device-independent commands from an application and formatting them into the device-specific format of a particular print device.
Print Server: A computer on the network dedicated to managing printers on the network. The print server can be any computer on the network. Responsibilities include spooling, de-spooling, and managing and prioritizing jobs.
De-spooling: The process of sending device-specific print commands to a print device.
Print Spooler: The Windows service and collection of supporting dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that accept a document sent to a printer by an application and store it on disk (or in memory) until the print device is available to process the job. This collection of DLLs receives, processes, schedules, and distributes documents for printing.
Print Queue: The list of documents waiting to be printed for a particular printer.
Native Print Driver: Print drivers included with the Windows media or provided through Windows Update.
Manufacturer (or Third-party) Print Driver: A driver developed by the device manufacturer for a particular device that is not included in the operating system.
IPP (Internet Printing Protocol): Used by Novell and Microsoft print services to make network printers available to clients through a Web browser interface.
GDI (Graphics Device Interface): The Windows subsystem used by an application to produce device-independent graphical output (for example, to a display or print device).
EMF (Enhanced Metafile): The device-independent format of Windows spool files; it is the encapsulation of the device-independent GDI calls made by an application prior to being converted to the device-specific format that is sent to a physical print device.