AIX - CUPS 'Unsupported document-format' error

[Helge Blischke]

Zac Lippard wrote:

> I have a Zebra printer that I'm trying to send a PDF of a label to. I was
> reading on Zebra's website that CUPS is an optional print server/spooler
> that can be used for exactly what I need. So I went through the process of
> installing CUPS on my AIX 6.1 system by going here:
> http://www.perzl.org/aix/index.php?n=Main.Cups and downloading the CUPS
> rpm and its dependencies. I'm able to get the server up and running and
> can add new printers just fine and set them up to use the built-in Zebra
> ZPL driver. My problem occurs when I try to send a test print job via the
> web interface or a PDF to the printer via command-line using 'lp -d
> <printer-name> <pdf-file>'. Whenever I try to send anything to the
> printer, I simply get back an 'unsupported document-format' exception.
> 
> For the web interface it's: 'unsupported format:
> "application/vnd.cups-banner"'
> 
> and for the pdf file it's: 'unsupported document-format:
> "application/pdf"'
> 
> I'm not sure what to do at this point. I've installed GhostScript and
> Foomatic's filters (foomatic-rip) but I'm not sure if they're tied in to
> CUPS at all. I found this here:
> http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/pst/cups-filters.html which
> is source code for all the CUPS filters that Apple apparently removed when
> they took over this project but I'd rather get some more feedback first
> before attempting anything else.
> 
> Any thoughts?

Verify that your CUPS installation contains the rastertolabel filter. If 
that is true, you need to install either the cups-filters from open 
printing, or if you don't want to compile this package from the sources (in 
case there is no RPM for AIX), you could alternatively use the gstoraster 
filter from
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/cupsaddons/files/filter-gstoraster/
which is written in Perl (should be part of the standard installation on 
your AIX box) and only requires Ghostscript (which you already installed).
For the details, see the accompanying documentation.

Helge