Conversion of Printstream from Epson (ESC/P, ESC/P2), IBM Proprinter, NEC Pinwriter

[Helge Blischke]

Michael Leimann wrote:

> Let me ask some stupid questions.
> 
> Dare I?
> 
> We are still using some DOS application programmed to print directly on
> EPSON printers.
> 
> Yes, we are. Don't shout at me.
> 
> I would very much like to capture and handle the output, which is no
> problem, because they are running in a virtual environment (VMWare) using
> a NOVELL NetWare shell anyway.
> 
> So we are able to capture the output present that raw printing to a CUPS
> server. We are performing that for quite a long time and it works well.
> 
> CUPS does not understand what to do with it, because it is no PostScript
> it is ordinary raw ESC/P(2). It can print that to an appropriate printer
> without any problem but it cannot convert it to PostScript or PDF.
> 
> I found two projects that are able to convert ESC/P(2) to other print/file
> formats:
> 
> One is DOSEMU, which itself allows old DOS applications to run under
> Linux. This is not what we are looking for, because this is to far away
> from what we are planning to do.
> 
> The second one is the PPR Spooler (Page Printer Spooler,
> http://ppr.trincoll.edu) which development seems to have stopped.
> 
> We have been able to partially install the PPR Spooler under a openSuSE
> 11.0 environment and have tested it's ability to convert ESC/P(2) to
> PostScript and can confirm that it works well (We converted text with
> attributes and graphics without any problem).
> 
> Now my questions:
> 
> Is there a known approach to get the PPR Spooler working together with
> CUPS?
I don't think so.
> 
> Is there an alternative way to convert such print stream (ESC/P) to
> PostScript using CUPS?
Yes, to write an appropriate filter. It is even possible to write the 
conversion entirely in PostScript (and use a Perl script to act as a CUPS 
filter which prpends the PS converter to the input stream).
> 
> Has anyone ever tried to use the filters from PPR Spooler with CUPS?
Not that I know of, but you can easily write a wrapper script around the PPR 
filters for use with CUPS.
> 
> Regards to everyone
> 
> Michael

Helge