other images the print engine 210 can communicate with the printer formatter 54 when the pc card 50 is inserted into the slot 44 the print engine 210 communicates with the printer formatter 54 via a print engine ready data perd interface 220 in like manner the pc cards 50 can communicate with the host machine 30 via a print formatter ready data pfrd interface 230 when the pc card 50 is coupled to the host machine 30 it is noted that multiple pc card formatters 50 e g f_ 1 to f_n can be developed and used with the same print engine 210 the present invention provides a printer formatter solution having a perd interface 220 and pfrd interface 230 that can be flexibly coupled to the print engine 210 and the host machine 30 respectively the perd interface 220 can be any industry standard computer port interface or a custom interface the pfrd interface 230 can be any industry standard computer port interface that can be but is not limited to an ieee 1284 parallel port interface a usb serial port interface and an ethernet interface fig3 is a block diagram illustrating in greater detail the pc card 50 having the printer formatter 54 of fig1 configured in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.