Does CUPS support JPL

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Bill Hammack wrote:
> Perhaps this isn't quite the right question ... but .... here's the problem. I have a networked printer (Panasonic DP-C322) that works fine with Windows. When I download a ppd to print from CUPS/linux it prints the first line of the postscript file and then about a 100 blank pages. When I examine the windows and linux postscript files I note that the windows seems to be a "JPL" file (PCL 6 of some sort I assume?) and the Linux is a postscript file (3.0.) I learned that our DP-C322 DOESN'T have a postscript module, but uses PCL 6. So, is there a ppd or a way to create a file with the JPL headers like below? (Note: I've tried a generic PCL6 ppd, but it still generates a 3.0 postscript file? Am I missing something here?)
> 
> Header of the Window file that prints well:
> 
> %-12345X at PJL COMMENT Panasonic DP-C322 PCL 6
> @PJL COMMENT TREATASCHARACTER
> @PJL COMMENT version 2K 5.01.054.001
> @PJL JOB TIME="2007/07/30 11:26:46"
> @PJL JOB NAME="4861.pdf"
> @PJL JOB OWNER="Administrator"
> @PJL JOB HOST="UNIVERSI-6X13UL"
> @PJL JOB PCIP="172.016.239.129"
> @PJL SET RESOLUTION=600
> @PJL SET RESOLUTIONXY=600-600
> @PJL SET BLANKPAPER=OFF
> @PJL SET QTY=1
> @PJL SET SORTING=STACK
> @PJL SET ORIENTATION=PORTRAIT
> @PJL SET ECONOMODE = OFF
> @PJL SET RENDERMODE=COLOR
> @PJL SET OUTBIN=AUTO
> @PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=PCLXL
> ) HP-PCL XL;2;1;Comment (C) Panasonic Communications Co., Ltd. 2005
> 
> Header of the Linux PS file that doesn't print:
> 
> %!PS-Adobe-3.0
> %%BoundingBox: (atend)
> %%Creator: OpenOffice.org 2.0
> %%For: bill
> %%CreationDate: Mon Jul 30 12:07:03 2007
> %%Title: 4891e
> %%LanguageLevel: 3
> %%DocumentData: Clean7Bit
> %%Pages: (atend)
> %%PageOrder: Ascend
> %%EndComments
> %%BeginProlog
> %%BeginResource: procset PSPrint-Prolog 1.0 0
> /ISO1252Encoding
> 


Your printer should start to print "real" pages even with the most gene-
ric "for PCL printers"-PPD shipped by CUPS (it is called "laserjet.ppd")

You can try (as root) to install it like this:

  lpadmin -p mypanasonic \
          -v socket://ipaddress-of-printer:9100 \
          -E \
          -m laserjet.ppd

(You may need to append a '.gz' to 'laserjet.ppd'). That PPD will call
a filter that converts the PostScript jobfiles (these will still be sub-
mitted by Linux applications for printing!) into PCL.

Once the darn thing prints *at all*, you can start to look for a PPD
that supports all the device specific capabilities of your printer.

-- 
Kurt Pfeifle
System & Network Printing Consultant ---- Linux/Unix/Windows/Samba/CUPS
Infotec Deutschland GmbH  .....................  Hedelfinger Strasse 58
A RICOH Company  ...........................  D-70327 Stuttgart/Germany