[cups.general] eps printing broken

[Helge Blischke]

David Bishop wrote:
> On Wednesday 28 June 2006 04:59, Helge Blischke wrote:
> 
>>The following Perl script should convert it into a DSC conformant EPS:
>>---snip---
>>#!/usr/bin/perl -w
>>if (scalar @ARGV) == 6)
>>{
>>    $input = $ARGV[5];			# input file name given
>>    open (INPUT, "$input") || die ("ERROR: $input: $!\n");
>>}
>>elsif (scalar §ARGV == 5)
>>{
>>    open (INPUT, "<&STDIN") || die ("ERROR: dup STDIN: $!\n");
>>}
>>while (<INPUT>)
>>{
>>	if (/^\s*%/)
>>	{
>>					# comment line, possibly needs to be modified
>>		s/\s*%BoundingBox/%%BoundingBox/;
>>		s/^\s+%%/%%/;
>>	}
>>	print;
>>}
>>exit 0;
>>---snip---
> 
> 
> Fantastic.  I'll probably end up using that, or something very, very, close to 
> it.
> 
> 
>>this script (untested, but should work out of the box) may be directly
>>used as a CUPS filter.
>>
>>Helge
>>
>>PS: BTW, your EPS as well as the modied one (according to the above rules)
>>both printed at our site (CUPS 1.1.19, but with the alternate pstops
>>filter).
> 
> 
> This, however, was the more exciting part.  When I plugged the alternative 
> pstops filter in, I got the same thing!  Those files started printing just 
> fine!  I was very excited.
> 
> However, and the reason for my dismay, it did *not* fix all my eps-related 
> woes.  I linked to an eps file from *yet another* program that appears to 
> generate crappy postscript*.  As far as I know, we only have three things 
> that make eps, and the other two are working, now.  This one, which is *not* 
> affected by the bounding box issue ( I checked ) has the exact same symptoms: 
> it prints out a single blank page.
> 
> Other than plugging the ps2ps filter in, ideas?
> 
> *It's almost 3 megs, and I didn't think it would be polite to attach.
> http://www.gnuconsulting.com/output2.ps
> 

I tested your file and got a blank page.
Then I commented out these lines in oyur file:
<<
    /HWResolution [300 300]
    /Policies << /PageSize 5>>
 >> setpagedevice
and then the file printed OK.
printing the original file directly (using the hpnpf stand alone utility or,
alternative, ftp) to the printer, even the unmodified file came out OK.

The printer I tested with was a HP 4100dtn.

As the resolution for this printer is - like with all HP printers I know of -
is set by PJL commands (the default resolution defined by the PPD is 600),
a different resolution setting by the PS interpreter obviously causes the
printer to generate an ampty page.

I suspect your printer behaves similar, so I suggest either to modify the
resolution setting in your application to that of the printer, or set the
printer resolution by the appropriate command line option
("-o jclresolution=300dpi" in my case).

Helge

PS: Subtle bugs like this are common to "normal" PostScript printers,
especially if they accept different PDLs like PCLx, PS, and others.

-- 
Helge Blischke
Softwareentwicklung
SRZ Berlin | Firmengruppe besscom
http://www.srz.de