Print PDF direct to printer

[Helge Blischke]

Christoph Litauer wrote:

> Dear cups users,
> 
> very often students complain about the time it takes to print some PDF
> documents to our (fast) printers. I tracked that down to the following
> situation:
> - the documents printed are pdf converted ppt files with transparent
> backgrounds or backgrounds with color gradients.
> - the students print 2- or 4-up.
> - they print from windows clients using the windows cups driver.
> 
> Due to the fact that postscript isn't able to represent transparency or
> color gradients, the generated postscript code is 40 to 50 times as big
> as the pdf source. This postscript code is printed very slowly (up to
> several minutes per page).
> A workaround would be installing a PCL driver for theses printers. But
> the resulting pcl code is nearly as big as the postscript code. When the
> document is on the printer it is printed very fast, but the printing
> process on the windows client takes lots of time (10-20 sec./page). So
> this doesn't seem to be a sufficient solution.
> 
> A better solution would be sending the PDF code directly to the printer
> as the printer is able to print pdf and does this very fast.
> 
> I wonder wether it would be possible to get a (possibly generic) windows
> driver that doesn't convert the pdf documents to postscript or pcl.
> Instead it should modify the PDF code as to use some printer special
> features (input tray, duplex, color vs. greyscale etc.) and send pdf
> code to the cups server. Then it would be easy to configure cups to
> detect windows generated pdf code and send this code unmodified to the
> backend.
> 

I'd sugest to install Peter Lerup's printfile on the windows boxes 
(freeware) and configure that to pass through PDF files unmodified to the 
cups server. Then insert into the PPDs of the rexpective PDF printers a line

*cupsFilter: "application/pdf 0 -"

As for job attributes like n-up printing and the like, I suspect you need to 
rely on printers which understand IPP. If your PDF printers require some 
other type of job ticket, please tell more about them. You could even 
contact me off the list at h dot blischke at acm dot org.

Helge