[cups.general] Need help printing PDFs

Gerald Britton gerald.britton at gmail.com
Tue Sep 25 08:23:20 PDT 2007


Searching for the alternate pdftops filter at cups.org led me to:

http://www.srz.de/Members/bla/cups/filter/pdftops

is that right?  I see three things there.  Not to sure where to put
them though.  Does the new pdftops go into /usr/local/bin or something
like that?  What about the filters?

On 9/25/07, Helge Blischke <h.blischke at srz.de> wrote:
> Gerald Britton wrote:
> > try this one:
> >
> > http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1851_pdf/e096/e002379200.pdf
> >
> > On 9/25/07, Helge Blischke <h.blischke at srz.de> wrote:
> >
> >>Gerald Britton wrote:
> >>
> >>>Thanks for the tip on acroread. I installed it and found that it does
> >>>a better job.  The only problem I have with it is that it does not
> >>>obey the landscape option.  No matter what I do, it prints portrait.
> >>>
> >>>So. here's what I know:
> >>>
> >>>cups/lp can't print all PDFs properly.  You need Acrobat Reader for that
> >>>Acrobat reader (on Linux) doesn't process all options properly.  You
> >>>need Windows for that!
> >>>
> >>>On 9/25/07, Helge Blischke <h.blischke at srz.de> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>Gerald Britton wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>Distro is ubuntu 7.04
> >>>>>>Cups version is  1.2.8-0ubuntu8
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>On 9/24/07, Kurt Pfeifle <k1pfeifle at gmx.net> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>>use the "file /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops" command to find out
> >>>>>>>if it is just a wrapper script or a binary) ?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>Hmmm?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>>I'm asking because some distros don't ship the original CUPS pdftops
> >>>>>>>filter, but have cobbled together their own wrapper script around
> >>>>>>>the XPDF utility with the same name, which regularly causes problems
> >>>>>>>similar to yours, due to its own bugs and misconfiguration....
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>The "alternate pdftops filter" as published on the CUPS web site (see the
> >>>>links there) offers nearly all options the xpdf's pdftops utility
> >>>>known as job attributes. E.g. add "-o pdf-paper=letter"
> >>>>(without the quotes) as a command line option to the lp or lpr
> >>>>command to force printing on letter sized media. See the
> >>>>descriptional comments in the wrapper script for further details.
> >>>>BTW, the wrapper script permits the use of acroread (the free
> >>>>Adobe reader) as a further alternative - there are PDF files
> >>>>which can only be converted to usable PS by acroread.
> >>>>
> >>>>Helge
> >>>>
> >>>>--
> >>>>Helge Blischke
> >>>>Softwareentwicklung
> >>>>
> >>>>H.Blischke at acm.org
> >>>>_______________________________________________
> >>>>cups mailing list
> >>>>cups at easysw.com
> >>>>http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/cups
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Perhaps you post (an URL to) a sample PDF.
> >>We print PDFs as indicated all the time and have not
> >>trouble with them,
> >>
> >>Helge
> >>
> >>
> >>--
> >>Helge Blischke
> >>Softwareentwicklung
> >>
> >>H.Blischke at acm.org
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>cups mailing list
> >>cups at easysw.com
> >>http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/cups
> >>
> >
> >
>
> OK. The PDF file defines a media box (and a crop box with the same
> parameters) the width of which is greater than its height. That is,
> the page *is* a landscape page by definition.
> The "alternate pdftops filter", if configured as recommended, spits
> out a PostScript file which sets up a page size as defined by the
> PDF's media box, which is certainly too big for a letter sized media.
> But the pstops filter, if properly configured, shrinks the logical
> page to the availabel media size(s). It also should automatically
> account for the implicit orientation. Maybe that the latter feature
> still has not yet been implemented - we use the "alternate pstops filter"
> which does this (and has a couple of other features).
>
> Perhaps you need to play arount with the orientation option
> (-o orientation=n, where n 0s a number 0 to 3) to get the proper
> output with the original pstops filter.
>
> At our site, using both alternate filters, we simply emit
> lp -d printername e002379200.pdf
> to get a printout that looks OK. I need to note that all our
> printers are configured to use the PPDs shrink to fit
> option by default (in case of a HP printer "DefaultHPPaperPolicy: NearestSizeAdjust")
>
> Helge
>
>
> Helge
>
> --
> Helge Blischke
> Softwareentwicklung
>
> H.Blischke at acm.org
> _______________________________________________
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> cups at easysw.com
> http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/cups
>





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