[cups.general] Handling text files with CUPS?

[Tim Waugh]

On Wed, 2008-03-05 at 11:25 -0800, David Miller wrote:
> I recently changed my CUPS print server from RHEL4 to RHEL5 and now  
> I'm seeing much different results when printing text files from the  
> command line using a plain lp command.

The reason is that a different filter is being used.  Whereas Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4 uses the CUPS 'texttops' filter, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux 5 uses 'texttopaps', a filter based on the paps text formatter:
  http://paps.sourceforge.net/

This filter is used for text/plain format files.

You can edit the file /etc/cups/mime.convs on the CUPS print server so
that the CUPS texttops filter is used for text/plain files.  Find this
line:

text/plain              application/postscript  33      texttopaps

and change it to:

text/plain              application/postscript  33      texttops

> The funny thing is that if the server does not have the lpoptions file  
> and the RHEL clients do, the fonts come out larger or bolder. It would  
> appear that the RHEL systems are converting the file to postscript  
> before shipping it off to the print server at which point the print  
> server is also doing something to the file. The HP-UX box sends the  
> file as text so it is only manipulated by the print server.
> 
> How do I make my RHEL clients stop manipulating the job and let the  
> server handle it?

How are the queues set up on the clients?  If they are discovered
automatically ('CUPS browsing'), the job should be sent to the server.
If you have explicitly added queues to the clients, perhaps they are set
as PostScript queues, forcing the local machine to convert to PostScript
before submitting the job to the server. 

> Also how do I change the job on the server to use  
> smaller fonts, and stop wrapping lines.

You can set 'network default options' on the CUPS server.  This is
similar to lpoptions, except that the options are applied (as defaults,
i.e. if the options are not already set) to jobs at the server end
rather than the client end.

To set these, start the printing configuration tool
(System->Administration->Printing from the main menu) and go to the 'Job
Options' tab.

Add the option 'wrap=false' to turn off line-wrapping.

Tim.
*/

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