Blank pages when printing Mozilla PostScript file with 2 pages/sheet on postscript printer

[Hartvig Ekner]

I put a new trace-file at:

    http://www.ekner.info/traces.tgz

This time it is a .tgz file due to limitations at my hosting company :-) It contains
three files: The original mozilla.ps output (captured with print-to-file from mozilla)
and two traces captured by replacing foomatic-rip with a small script. The two foomatic-rip
traces are done with 1-up printing (TRACE.1up) and 2-up printing (TRACE.2up). (Note that
the argument dumps in the first few lines of each trace need to be removed to get clean postscript
data).

I can "GGV" the TRACE.1up trace, and it looks as expected. When opening the TRACE.2up trace,
I can see that GGV draws something, and then it immediately after clears it, so that I'm looking
at a blank page (which is also what the printer outputs). So I think the answer lies within the
TRACE.2up file. Doing a diff between these two trace files reveals:

[hje at hje-6 tmp]$ diff TRACE.1up TRACE.2up
2c2
< 24
---
 > 25
6c6
< outputorder=normal number-up=1 page-border=single nowrap position=top-left Duplex=Notcapable PageSize=A4 Resolution=default PreFilter=No
---
 > outputorder=normal number-up=2 page-border=single nowrap position=top-left Duplex=Notcapable PageSize=A4 Resolution=default PreFilter=No
16c16
< %%CreationDate: 2004/10/26 11:19:03
---
 > %%CreationDate: 2004/10/26 11:19:33
97a98,101
 > userdict/ESPsave save put
 > 24.0 48.0 translate
 > 547.0 0.0 translate 90 rotate
 > 0.0 1.1 translate 0.647 0.647 scale
99,100c103,104
< 0.240 setlinewidth 0 setgray newpath
< 26.2 50.2 542.5 765.5 ESPrs
---
 > 0.371 setlinewidth 0 setgray newpath
 > 3.5 3.5 588.0 835.0 ESPrs
101a106
 > 0 0 595.0 842.0 ESPrc
1251a1257,1264
 > userdict /ESPsave get restore
 > userdict/ESPsave save put
 > 24.0 48.0 translate
 > 547.0 0.0 translate 90 rotate
 > 385.0 1.1 translate 0.647 0.647 scale
 > 0 0 595.0 842.0 ESPrc
 >
 > userdict /ESPsave get restore
1252a1266
 > 595.0 0.0 translate 90 rotate

But I'm not post-script capable enough to see what the problem is.....

Best regards,

/Hartvig


Helge Blischke wrote:
> Well, your sample file prints ok here, both normal and with the
> number-up=2 option. Moreover, I printed some web pages from mozilla
> with this option successfully.
> How is your mozilla printing configured? I use "kprinter -stdin"
> as printer setup in mozilla, and this works with both CUPS 1.1.18
> and 1.1.19 (the versions in use at our site).
> 
> Perhaps you could try to intercept the data that go into the
> foomatic RIP (e.g. temporarily replace foomatic-rip by a script
> that simply dumps the standard input to a file) and post that.
> 
> You see, I've no proper idea what the issue might be (yet).
> 
> Helge