[cups.general] Alternative pdftops filter does not work any more

Till Kamppeter till.kamppeter at gmail.com
Fri Feb 22 16:02:54 PST 2008


The CUPS wrapper script for the pdftops filter 
(/usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops) seems to be for the XPDF edition of 
pdftops which supports the "-cfg" option.

Simply replacing poppler-utils by xpdf-utils (from universe) via

sudo apt-get install xpdf-utils

fixes the problem.

Another possibility is using Ghostscript as PDF filter for CUPS, 
replacing /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops by the script [1]. This way I 
even succeeded to print a 400-pages PDF which made pdftops crashing. 
Note that the attached Ghostscript-based PDF filter does not support all 
CUPS options.

So to fix this problem we have the following possibilities:

1. Replace poppler-utils by xpdf-utils.
2. Patch poppler-utils with the "-cfg" functionality taken from xpdf-utils
3. Use a Ghostscript-based PDF filter. Note here that the script [1] 
needs some improvement to support the PDF-filter-related CUPS options
4. Return to CUPS' original PDF filter (needs more space on distribution 
CDs and requires more security updates as it duplicates XPDF/Poppler code)

    Till

[1] http://launchpadlibrarian.net/12158917/pdftops


Till Kamppeter wrote:
> Thank you, so your script is for the XPDF edition of pdftops and not for 
> the Poppler edition? Ubuntu Hardy ships the Poppler edition by default.
> 
> I have now installed the XPDF edition by doing
> 
> sudo apt-get install xpdf-utils
> 
> and accepting the removal of poppler-utils. Now CUPS prints PDFs without 
> problems.
> 
> Helge, do you know the exact differences between the Poppler and the 
> XPDF editions of pdftops and the other PDF filters? Are there any 
> disadvantages to make the xpdf-utils the default in Ubuntu?
> 
>    Till
> 
> 
> Helge Blischke wrote:
>>
>> Till, I just looked into the xpdf 3.02 sources (that is the version
>> currently in use at oursite) and found
>>
>> static ArgDesc argDesc[] = {
>>   ...
>>    {"-cfg",        argString,      cfgFileName,    sizeof(cfgFileName),
>>     "configuration file to use in place of .xpdfrc"},
>>   ...
>> };
>>
>> in all of the utilities' main modules, e.g. in
>> pdftops.cxx
>>
>> The config gile seems to be digested in a module GlobalParams.cc
>>
>> Helge
>>
>>
> 
> 





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