[cups.general] filter on text only queue

[Jerome Alet]

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 07:58:09PM -0400, Mike wrote:
> 
>   Can someone please explain how to create the ppd file to call a 
> filter which will replace a string (like "||eSc||") with an actual 
> escape character (ascii(27), 0x1B)  Here's what i've been working with:
> 
> http://www.linuxprinting.org/pipermail/general-list/2004q1/004976.html
> http://www.linuxprinting.org/pipermail/general-list/2002q4/003046.html

this solution may not work as expected if Crystal Report and/or
the windows driver used doesn't produce Postscript code or if your
printer already needs a *cupsFilter line (for example to launch
a foomatic filter) in its ppd file.

in fact your filter would be bypassed and/or bypass-able 

best to do is to write a CUPS backend wrapper, which would
replace code at the very last stage before sending datas to
the hardware: your backend would just run the normal backend
with modified datas, and nothing even an incorrect driver 
could bypass it.

however it's more difficult to write a backend wrapper than a 
filter, but you'll find code to do this at least in Python and Perl 
on www.cups.org 

hth

Jerome Alet