Color, page-size and duplex accounting

[Helge Blischke]

Miquel Quiles wrote:

>> 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
>>
> 
> Sorry for my ignorance, but how can I extract the info I need from the
> postscript file? I've installed "gs" and I can open it and see that is an
> A3 or an A4 document, but I would like this to be automatically with (for
> example) a command line. Or something similar (CUPS filters or backends)
> where I could pass all this info to my own script. I did some search on
> the Internet buy I couldn't find anything.
> 
> Thanks in advance.

In case of PostScript jobs, you need to program a piece of PostScript that 
intercepts certain PS statements, e.g. showpage for counting pages, color 
related operators to determine b/w or color etc. etc.

If you specify the properties which are most important to you, I could give 
you sort of a prototype as a starting point.

Helge