[cups.general] Need help printing PDFs

Gerald Britton gerald.britton at gmail.com
Tue Sep 25 08:56:51 PDT 2007


OK -- got the stuff in the right places.  I renamed my original
pdftops to pdftops.old and renamed the new filter from pdftops.pl to
pdftops and made it executable.  I tried the command:

lp -d printer mypdf.pdf

and got no output.  Looking at the script, I see a reference to the variable:

CUPS_SERVERROOT

which is not set in my environment.  I see that the script dies if the
variable is not set, which is probably why I got no output.

Where should this variable be set?  In my session? or in the cups
startup script?

On 9/25/07, Helge Blischke <h.blischke at srz.de> wrote:
> Gerald Britton wrote:
> > 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
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>cups mailing list
> >>cups at easysw.com
> >>http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/cups
> >>
> >
> >
>
> Put the filter into your CUPS filter directory (usually
> /usr/lib/cups/filter/) and the pdftops sample configuration
> file into your CUPS base directory (usually /etc/cups/)
>
> Currently, I'd not recommend the acroread stuff, as with the
> latest acroread (8.1.1) there are some quirks, espeically on Solaris.
>
> Get the xpdf suite from http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/download.html
> (there are precompiled binaries for both Linux and Solaris), if
> you do nat already have them. The version 3.02 is highly recommended
> (the security patch in 3.02p1 seems not to have any affects on CUPS
> processing.
>
> In the pdftops filter script, change the path to xpdf's pdftops utility
> as needed. You might also look into the xpdfrc manpage for more
> configuration options if you need to modify the sample config file.
>
> Helge
>
>
> --
> Helge Blischke
> Softwareentwicklung
>
> H.Blischke at acm.org
> _______________________________________________
> cups mailing list
> cups at easysw.com
> http://lists.easysw.com/mailman/listinfo/cups
>





More information about the cups mailing list