Color, page-size and duplex accounting

[Helge Blischke]

Miquel Quiles wrote:

> I have a couple of printers configured on my CUPS server.
> Then I've configured a printer with Tea4CUPS backend. This printer has the
> same driver as the "real" printers. It only picks up accounting info (such
> as title, job-id, number of pages...) and it keeps the printjob data-file.
> 
> Later I want to print this jobs to the "real" printers. This works great,
> but I would like to obtain more info such as page-size (A4, A3,...),
> duplex (yes or no) and color (color or black&white).
> 
> How can I do this? Can you guide me?
> Thanks in advance.

I think there is no general solution, as you need to interpret the data 
stream just as the real printer does.In case of PostScript, this surely can 
be done using Ghostscript, in case of PCL (up to PCL 5) maybe using 
GhostPCL, but I don't know what kond of interpreter to use for e.g. XPS
(aka PCL 6) or the diverse Epson printer languages etc. etc.).

Some printer architectures allow gathering of "backchannel" information 
relevant for accounting, e.g. printers that understand a substantial subset 
of HP's PJL, or PS printers fed with jobs equipped with procedures to gather 
such information.

Helge