[RFE] STR #1869: Automatic '-o raw' fornon-DSC-conformingPostScript?

[John A. Murdie]

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> John A. Murdie wrote:
> > [STR New]
> >
> > I find that the pstops filter emits PostScript which causes blank pages to
> > be printed - one for each original page - if the input PostScript is
> > non-Document Structure Convention conforming (see attached example file,
> > whose first page is printed as blank simply because the application which
> > generated the file omitted the '%%BeginProlog') - but I have other,
> > larger,  examples which print tens or hundreds of blank pages. In some -
> > but not all - such situations, the CUPS log file receives the message:
> >
> > This document does not conform to the Adobe Document Structuring
> > Conventions and may not print correctly!
> >
> > The problem is fixed if one uses 'lp -o raw' or 'lpr -o raw'.
> >
> > Of course, if users only kept and exchanged documents in a
> > purpose-designed portable document format, and CUPS only ever had to deal
> > with applications which produced only DSC-conforming PostScript, then this
> > problem wouldn't arise.
> >
> > We have to live in the real world, however. There are people here who have
> > 20 years of documents in PostScript, much of it non-DSC-conforming. I've
> > hammered on at them for years to distill these into PDF files, and asked
> > them not to pass PostScript documents to, or receive them, from external
> > colleagues, but to use PDF instead. They don't remember. Then again, there
> > is much application software - some no longer maintained but still useful
> > - which produces bad PostScript. I've not looked at Microsoft
> > Windows-produced PostScript in a while, but at one time it violated the
> > DSCs big-time - e.g. by outputing PostScript resources on the first page
> > that used them, so that if one printed part of the document which used the
> > resource but not the one on which the resource was introduced, then the
> > print failed.
> >
> > Unless something is done I'm going to be bothered by users of our new CUPS
> > installation coming to me clutching piles of blank paper, demanding
> > refunds for their printing costs and wasted time. Some of them will be
> > angry.
> >
> > The only work-around I can think of is to set '-o raw' as an
> > across-the-board default option (how would I do that?), but would it be
> > possible instead to make `-o raw' automatic for non-DSC-conforming
> > PostScript?
> >
> > Link: http://www.cups.org/str.php?L1869
> > Version:  -feature
>
> Try the attached file. If it prints OK, let me know.
>
> Helge
>
> --
> Helge Blischke
> Softwareentwicklung
> SRZ Berlin | Firmengruppe besscom
> http://www.srz.de

Yes, I imagine that it will print ok - I see that you added the missing "%%BeginProlog" DSC mark which was the sole omission which prevented it printing correctly before.

Sorry for the delay - only just noticed your posting to cups.development.

John A. Murdie