[cups.general] Problems printing PDF files through cups.

[Helge Blischke]

Gerald Britton wrote:
> OK -- I'll need a bit of help.  I tried:
> 
> $CUPS_SERVERROOT='/etc/cups/' /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops.new my.pdf
> 
> (pdftops.new is the alternate pdftops that you recommended) and got the message:
> 
> 
> ERROR: wrong number of arguments
> 
> How should I properly call pdftops and pstops?
> 
> On 9/27/07, Helge Blischke <h.blischke at srz.de> wrote:
> 
>>H.Blischke at srz-berlin.com
>>H.Blischke at acm.orgGerald Britton wrote:
>>
>>>Yes, the printer has a web interface, but there's nothing there that I
>>>can see to change what I get in this case.
>>>
>>>I'm actually looking for a non-printer-specific solution, since I also
>>>print similar documents at home on a low-end printer.
>>>
>>>I had hoped that I could produce similar results (albeit more slowly
>>>and with reduced quality) on a $200 printer as a $10000 printer.  I am
>>>looking for a level of abstraction in cups to do that sort of thing.
>>>
>>>What is particularly galling, is that producing the results I am
>>>looking for -- printing a pdf scaled to fit the page size on any given
>>>printer in landscape orientation -- is a point-and-shoot operation on
>>>windows but, thusfar, unachievable with cups (at least the version I'm
>>>running)
>>>
>>>Soon I'll be able to try cups 1.3.2.  Maybe then....
>>>
>>>On 9/27/07, Helge Blischke <h.blischke at srz.de> wrote:
>>>
>>
>>As a last try, could you run the pdftops filter and the pstops filter
>>"by hand" from the command line and post the respective output?
>>
>>I'd badly like to know what the reason is that it does not work
>>at your site.
>>
>>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 CVUPS_SERVERROOT variable shoule be exported (export ...).
And the general calling conventions for CUPS filters are

execname jobid username title ncopies options [filename]

where
	execname	is the name of the filter to use
	jobid		the job-ID (for these test an arbitrary integer,
			I usualle take 4711)
	usename		tne name of the user submitting the job (arbitrary in this case)
	ncopies		number of copies, shoule be 1 in this test case
	options		a string of space separated job options (the "-o ..." stuff),
			use an empty double quoted string here ("")
	filename	the path of the file to process or, if not supplied,
			the filter will read from standard imput.
Output is always to standard output.
Perhaps you should additionaly set
TMPDIR=/var/tmp; export TMPDIR .

Example:

/usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops 4711 goofy test 1 "" input_file > output_of_pdftops

The output of pdftops is then fed into the pstops filter analogously.

Good luck!

Helge




-- 
Helge Blischke
Softwareentwicklung

H.Blischke at acm.org