[cups.general] Mac OS X printing to networked NEC dot matrix printer

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello

On Dec 9 02:56 Helge Blischke wrote:
> Dirk Rösler wrote:
>
>> Hello --
>> 
>> I am on Mac OS and have just purchased a NEC MultiImpact 700XX2N
>> (PR-D700XX2N) dot matrix printer that is supposed to print carbon copy
>> forms (switching printer not an option).
>> 
>> http://www.nec.co.jp/products/dot/suihei/index.html (sorry, all in
>> Japanese)
>> 
>> It has a network interface (with an embedded print server, I believe) and
>> networks fine, but there is no Mac driver or PPD. I can ping it and
>> configured it on the Mac in printer control panel/CUPS web admin.
>> 
>> I can print to it from apps with Generic PS Printer configured, but of
>> course it spits out all the postscript gibberish. I don't need any control
>> over fonts etc., just plain output of ASCII characters or text data I sent
>> to it, line by line and perhaps form feed. I need to set up label
>> templates and start printing from my backend software (not decided).
>> 
>> There is Windows software provided, but I'd rather avoid setting this up
>> and I have no Win machines.
>> 
>> I don't think the printer is a PS printer.
>> 
>> At some point I was able to print using the following command, but now
>> that doesn't work anymore.
>> 
>> lpr -P NEC_MultiImpact_700XX2N -o raw file.txt
>> 
>> The printer uses a command set called 201PL, which seems proprietary to
>> NEC and probably used in Japan only as it supports Asian Multibyte
>> Printing. Solaris Japanese supports NEC PC-PR201 (based on 201PL). Solaris
>> seems to incorporate a filter/function called jprconv to convert to this.
>> 
>> Is there a way I just can send plain characters to the printer and print
>> on tractor-fed paper? Ideally I would like to print from applications, but
>> if only the command line works, I'd be happy too.
>> 
>> Thanks for any suggestions and help.
>
> You could try to get (somehow) the terminfo nec-pr201 file from a Solaris 
> installation (not OpenSolaris, which lacks this file) and convert it into 
> source format using infocomp and then analyze it and hack a filter using 
> that information.

Regarding "hack a filter" the following is for Linux but it might
perhaps be also useful for Mac OS at least to understand the basic
ideas how one could "hack a filter" for CUPS:

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Using_Your_Own_Filters_to_Print_with_CUPS

In particular the sections regarding "Printing Plain ASCII Text
in Printer-Specific Encoding" therein.

Note that plain ASCII does not include any special Japanese
characters, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
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