[cups.development] Pseudo duplex mode for several printers

[Michael Sweet]

Jon Peatfield wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Oct 2007, Michael Sweet wrote:
> 
>> Aurélien Croc wrote:
>>> ...
>>> So, i'm wondering how CUPS can help my driver by giving to it pages 
>>> in this special order (and rotation) ?
>>> Is it a way to do that? Is it "impossible"?
>>
>> CUPS doesn't offer a way to do this in a single job.  Part of the
>> reason for this is that we have no way of communicating where the
>> first set of pages ends to the driver.
>>
>> Currently your best option is to setup a separate queue for manual
>> duplex which uses a modified version of the PPD file with a filter
>> for application/postscript that re-queues each half to the "real"
>> queue.
> 
> Couldn't the extra filter just add a magic (PPD-specific) comment 
> between the odd/even pages after re-ordering them.  Then the special 
> driver knows to look for this marker and sends whatever magic sequence 
> the printer needs to be told at that point?

Yes, however you'll still need to extract the even and odd pages.

> Assuming of course that the driver is getting sent the postscript of 
> course...

Right.

(Ultimately I think manual duplex handling belongs in the print
dialog...)

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Michael R Sweet                        Senior Printing System Engineer