[cups-devel] Controlling printer options with IPP attributes

[Michael Sweet]

Stephan,

> On Sep 29, 2016, at 3:06 AM, Stephan <stephanwib at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi!
> 
> I´m designing a cloud based printing solution which is based on PDF as
> the page description language. That means that print jobs are sent
> from the datacenter to our customer´s printers over a WAN link. This
> is a pretty new approach and there are almost no PPDs available that
> produce PDF output.

Actually, there are a LOT of people using this exact configuration.  The two most common configurations are using a printer driver on the datacenter server (with the usual PPD there) or having the datacenter server talk to a CUPS server at the customer site, which has the driver and is sharing it to the datacenter server.  Some sites also copy the customer PPD to the datacenter server and replace the cupsFilter lines with:

    *cupsFilter: "application/pdf 0 -"


> I used the following ones:
> 
> https://github.com/Distrotech/cups-filters/blob/distrotech-cups-filters/ppd/Generic-PDF_Printer-PDF.ppd
> https://github.com/Distrotech/cups-filters/blob/distrotech-cups-filters/ppd/HP-Color_LaserJet_CM3530_MFP-PDF.ppd
> 
> The challenge is to get all printer options (tray selection,
> color/monochrome, duplex, etc.) working, which could be achieved by
> having a PPD file that inserts PJL commands appropriately. This seems
> to be doable with HP printers. However, I found that Lexmark printers
> do not have a MEDIASOURCE option, which makes tray selection
> impossible.
> 
> In this case, I was able to get it working by sending the print job
> with ipptool and  inserting the following command (attached to
> print-job.test):
> 
>        GROUP job-attributes-tag
>        ATTR keyword media-source tray-1
> 
> I was also able to control other options (e.g. output-mode monochrome,
> copies 2) which were applied correctly by my printers. I like this
> approach much more than the PJL way because the commands are the same
> across different printer vendors.
> 
> However, I don´t think this is doable with cups, is it? What do you
> think about this approach and what would be a way to implement it in
> cups?
> 
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> 
> Stephan
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_________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer