[cups-devel] low level operation with PCL?

Michael Sweet msweet at apple.com
Mon Mar 23 06:28:30 PDT 2015


Toomas,

> On Mar 21, 2015, at 10:45 AM, Toomas Rosin <toomas at rosin.ee> wrote:
> 
> Hello!
> 
> I know that PCL is a page description (not low-level) language, and so
> it is perhaps no surprise that I cannot do what I would like to.  But
> after an extensive search in the Internet and the PCL documentation, I
> have not yet found a definite negative answer either.  Here is my
> problem:

PCL, as implemented in most inkjets, is a pretty low-level as languages go.

> I cannot figure out how to make my printer (HP DeskJet 1280 on USB)
> show me everything I have sent to it so far, *without ejecting the
> page*.  I am sending only plain raster graphics and cursor positioning
> commands --- no vector graphics, no text.

That may be difficult to do.  Aside from buffering, most inkjet printers employ "shingling" and other interleaving techniques to achieve higher-resolution output and reduce banding.  Thus, there is often no way to explicitly and directly control the actions of the print head.

_________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair




More information about the cups-devel mailing list