[cups.general] Re: Printer classes and Windows

[Anthony Chavez]

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On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:31:47 +0200 Helge Blischke <H.Blischke at srz-berlin.de> wrote:

>> > Anthony Chavez wrote:
>> >
>> >> I've currently got the class set up to use the PostScript devices, with
>> >> Adobe's drivers installed on the client machines.  This works great
>> >> except Ghostscript renders pages quite slowly.  So I'm interested in
>> >> using class that will print to the raw devices instead.
>> >>
>> >> However, when I try to configure the clients, I get prompted to install
>> >> a driver (as you would expect), but I'm not sure what to tell it, since
>> >> the class is heterogeneous.
>
> Well, I posted just what I would do in that case. As for the .inf file,
> an example
> has been posted recently in the cupd.development newsgroups.

Can you point me to the thread / message in question?  A search for
".INF" on gmane.org only yielded one thread ("Cups 1.1.20 User Mode
Driver") that isn't very recent.

> As for the "joint PPD", things are a little bit tricky, as both physical
> printers have to be handled differently. A first approach may be to
> write a
> PPD that only contains those statements, e.g. for paper sizes, that are 
>   b) switched on or off by exactly the same PS code on both printers.

I don't think that I was being clear enough in my above statement.  I am
looking for a driver that would support multiple heterogeneous *raw*
printers (though using their PCL drivers would be acceptable).

In my case, one printer has native support for PostScript, but the other
requires Ghostscript, which renders too slowly (I think this is because
it's printing at too high of a resolution).

I am looking to get away from using Ghostscript, but now that I think
about it, this brings to mind another question: is it possible to
configure CUPS to print at a different resolution, or is that only
possible through the Windows driver?  I am currently using the Adobe
PostScript printer driver [1], which doesn't appear to have that
capability.

> Any things beyond this "primitive" approach would require quite a lot
> more 
> work, including special filters for post-processing the code coming from
> the Winxx box(es).

Thanks for the pointers.  I have yet to delve into PPD code, so wish me
luck. :-)

[1] http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=44&platform=Windows

- -- 
Anthony Chavez                             http://www.anthonychavez.org/
mailto:acc at anthonychavez.org                jabber:acc at anthonychavez.org
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