[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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