[cups.general] PS lvl 3 to lvl2 conversion problem.

[Marc Moreau]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 03:55:56PM -0700, Michael R Sweet wrote:
> Marc Moreau wrote:
> > ...
> > Looking at mimes.types and mimes.convs files leads me to believe that
> > the .ps postfix gets picked up and passed directly to the printer.  
> > If this is the case ( Which I'm not entirely certain it is ), does this
> > bypass the reading of the PPD which stated level 2 ?
> 
> No, however CUPS does *not* try to convert level 3 PostScript to
> level 2 - that requires the use of a PostScript interpreter (like
> Ghostscript), at which point you are just as well off using a non-PS
> driver...

I've added ::

*cupsFilter:    "application/vnd.cups-raster 0 rastertohp"

to the ppd I have for the old printers, and I tested it with the most
complicated PS and PDF's I have without any trouble.
It all works now. Thanks.

> BTW, applications are supposed to either tailor their output to the
> PostScript level specified in the PPD or use the lowest language
> level they support.  Always producing level 3 PostScript is a recipe
> for disaster, and I'd file bugs against the applications that do that.

I'd love to, but many of the files are not created onsite (acedemic
papers) and are printed from commandline.


On a side note,  does cups do some form of shortest route algorithm to
determine how to render a particular file?  Further, does adding the ::

*cupsFilter:    "application/vnd.cups-raster 0 rastertohp"

line to the ppd force the use of that filter?

Again, many thanks.
-- 
Marc Moreau
Assistant System Administrator
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
University of Lethbridge
Email: sysassist at cs.uleth.ca