Foomatic is a printing system designed to make it easier to set up common printers for use with Debian (and other operating systems). It provides the "glue" between a print spooler (like CUPS or lpr) and your actual printer, by telling your computer how to process files sent to the printer.

This package contains the architecture-dependent programs needed to set up and maintain the foomatic system. You will also need one or more database packages. The foomatic-db package includes drivers for most common printers using Ghostscript as the print processor, as well as some common glue code used in other filter systems.