A4 and Test Prints

[Richard Downing]

Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
<snip>
> Paste the PPD, or at least the sections of your PPD which refer to
> the "PageSize", "PageRegion", "ImageableArea" and "PaperDimension"
> (*all* sizes, please) to a public paste service, and post the URL
> here (for example http://kde.pastebin.com/ ). If you prefer, you can
> send me your PPD by private mail and I'll have a look.

OK, the Xerox PPD is at http://kde.pastebin.com/ under my TheOldFellow handle.

>> The Xerox Docuprint C8 isn't exactly a printer 'in the first flush of youth' ;-) although the Lexmark Z515 is only a year old.   And both certainly will not print in the top and bottom margins, nor at the extreme edges (even on Windows with the proprietary drivers).
>
> Oh? Both show the very same problem? That's unusual...
>
>> So I now need to work out how to edit the PPD.  Is it just the '*ImageableArea' lines?
>
> It's the four areas named above.
>
> (Of course, when you make ImageableArea in the PPD bigger than
> your hardware can handle, you'll get cropped printouts. If you
> make it slightly smaller than your hardware can handle, usually CUPS will send those smaller "images", but you won't loose any
> stuff...
>
>> I think they are wrong for all paper sizes (ImageableArea = PageSize).  And for both my printers.  I'm actually amazed that this isn't reported anywhere.
>
> Where did you get these PPDs from? (Looks like a bug in the PPD
> generating software...) Did you try to find newer versions,
> directly on Linuxprinting.org? (I think that at least for the
> Xerox there should be one available...)
>

The Xerox PPD is directly from linuxprinting.org last month.  The current recommend is identical.  Its the cdj550 PPD for an HP Deskjet - that I would have thought was one of the 'most tested' PPDs available (on an HP that is :-))
The Lexmark one comes from a proprietary Lexmark package.

> Till for sure will know more details about it...
>

I tried changing the copy of the Xerox PPD in /etc/cups/ppd to this:

*ImageableArea A4/A4: " 30 30 565 792"

restarted cups, and ran another test.  Same result, so there must be more to editing PPDs that I've spotted so far.  Or maybe cups needs a bigger hint that the PPD has been changed?

Thank you both for helping me on this, I really appreciate it.

Richard.