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

[Helge Blischke]

Kurt Pfeifle wrote:
> Gerald Britton wrote:
> 
>>Thanks for working on this, Kurt.  I've learned a lot in the process
>>and that never hurts.  I'm disappointed that I can't reach my ultimate
>>goal, but I can do it easily with acrobat reader on windows (a couple
>>of clicks and it's rotated and scaled perfectly).  I just trying NOT
>>to use windows for stuff like this.
> 
> 
> 
> Hey, I now notice you didn't even pay attention and respond to my
> comments about specifying "landscape" as an option.
> 
> Or did you?
> 
> And did you receive the files I mailed to you?!?
> 
> And did you run the commandline exactly as I showed you, with the
> PPD  as an env variable? (and you verified the PPD has the full de-
> finitions for "Legal"? and the PPD passes the "cupstestppd" test?
> It may after all be the case that even your distro's wrapper script
> works correctly if used in the right way...)
> 
> 
>>On 9/27/07, Kurt Pfeifle <k1pfeifle at gmx.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Gerald Britton wrote:
>>>
>>>>here's the file I'm trying to print.
>>>
>>>I found it already in the meanwhile  :-)
>>>
>>>And I mailed you *my* results, which look perfect for "fitplot to
>>>Letter".
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I want to print it landscape,
>>>
>>>No, you don't want to. Honest. :-)
>>>
>>>In 99.99% of cases, it will do the wrong thing when applied to PDF
>>>file printing. I don't believe your case is amongst the 0.01%  :-)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>scaled down to fit my page size.  If you can do it for A4 or A3, I
>>>>should be able to do it for legal
>>>
>>>OK, I'll repeat the test for legal, and let you know the result.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/1851_pdf/e096/e002379200.pdf
>>>>
>>>>On 9/27/07, Gerald Britton <gerald.britton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>After some more experimenting, I used the following command:
>>>>>
>>>>>lp -o landscape -o media=legal -o fitplot -o PageSize=legal myfile.pdf
>>>>>
>>>>>the "-o=landscape" actually makes it print portrait!  So I removed that and ran:
>>>>>
>>>>>lp -o media=legal -o fitplot -o PageSize=legal myfile.pdf
>>>>>
>>>>>This got me closer to my goal.  The printout was landscape orientation
>>>>>(I know, doesn't make sense!) but the scaling was for portrait
>>>>>orientation and thus too small!
>>>>>
>>>>>On 9/27/07, Gerald Britton <gerald.britton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Thanks Kurt!  Yes, the $ was just from my prompt, when I cut and
>>>>>>pasted my results.  Helge helped me with the other operands as well.
>>>>>>I ran the commands and sent the output directly (not to the list,
>>>>>>since it is too big).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I tried gv as you suggested.  It shrank the pdf to fit the page but
>>>>>>didn't obey the printer directive to fit to the nearest size and
>>>>>>scale.
> 
> 
> 
Finally, it seems to an issue of the printer (i.e. the printer's PS interpreter)
itself. If I feed the PS files I got from Gerald (both the pdftops output as well
as the pstops output) to one of our HP printers, without further manipulation
(I used plain old ftp to submit the data), all printers I tested shrinked the
huge page to the largest available media, properly scaled and rotated.

Gerald, perhaps you could once more feed the pdftops output through
the pstops filter with the PPD configured, as Kurt proposed (sorry, I forgot
to mention it), just to be sure.

Helge

PS: When I need to modify the "alternate pstops filter" next time, I'll
implement the fitplot option for PS printers that do *not* correctly
follow the PS specification regarding the page size policies.

-- 
Helge Blischke
Softwareentwicklung

H.Blischke at acm.org