[cups.general] Xerox Phaser 7400DN

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:25:31 -0800
Helge Blischke <h.blischke at acm.org> dijo:

>> The same font prints perfectly to HP laserjets at my house, and to
>> printers at the university. It is only when I print to the Phaser
>> 7400DN from Linux that I cannot get the font to render correctly.
>>
>> Please, does anyone have one of these printers with a CUPS driver
>> that actually works? If so, I beg you to tell me which driver you
>> are using!

>We used this printer a couple of years in a commercial environment
>without any software related problems (only had some issues with print
>quality and toner waste hancling). But note that we only used the
>Xerox supplied PostScript PPD - no other pdl whatsoever.

I did not make one thing clear at the outset: All fonts, graphics, etc.
in all documents appear perfectly on screen. 

So just now I downloaded the PPD from Xerox. I selected the Linux
option and downloaded the tar file. After untarring it I found and
installed the following PPD:

	xrx7400dn.ppd	85.0 KB	Mon 02 Jan 2040

Disregarding the fact that apparently my net connection hyperlinked me
into the year 2040, this is the only PPD file that fits my printer.
From the Xerox startup page the printer is:

	Phaser 7400DN
	Adobe PostScript(R) 3:	3016.101 (3)
	PCL 5c Versions:	OS 6.26 / PS 4.2.0 / Eng 0.11.2 / Net
		25.72.10.07.2005
	Installed RAM 	256 MB
	Hard disk:	Not Connected
	Duplex Unit:	Installed
	Print Quality:	Standard
	TekColor 	Automatic

And other stuff not pertinent to this discussion.

The printer has only the standard manual feed tray (Tray 1) and the
lower Tray 2. It does not have any of the optional large capacity
trays, nor does it have stackers or output bins other than the bin on
top. This is just the basic printer without any of the optional
accessories.

After installing this PPD as a new driver I tried to print to it:

1) The Properties options in the driver (in the printer management GUI)
do not list Tray 2. I tried to add Tray 2 as an option, but it gave me
an error that Tray 2 was not installed. Of course, all Phaser 7400DN
printers come with a Tray 2, so why was that not in the PPD? I checked
the box saying that the "optional" input bins were installed, and then I
was able to select Tray 2 as the default paper source. However, printing
from LibreOffice the only tray options are Tray 1 and "Paper."
Regardless of which I select, the job as sent to the printer is set to
pull from Tray 1. The only way I can get it to print is to walk over to
the printer and manually tell it to "use available paper."

2) While printing from LibreOffice I can enter the Properties for the
printer, where I note in the Device tab that the Printer Language is
set by default to PDF. If I leave it at that the fonts are garbled. In
the drop-down there are options for Postscript Level 1, 2, 3 and "from
driver." This printer has genuine Adobe Postscript Level 3, so I
selected that. Now, if I close the options dialog box and reopen it I
find that it is set to Level 2. It won't accept Level 3. Disregarding
that problem, regardless of which Postscript option I choose I get
fonts printing correctly, but the entire letter size page appears in
the upper left corner of the paper 1.75 inches wide by 2.25 inches
high. I looked all over for some "scale" option, but cannot find one,
either in the LibreOffice print dialog options or in the Printer
Management options.

3) For my next exercise I opened the PDF file exported from LibreOffice
in Evince. When I went to print it the print dialog box does show Tray
2, and selecting Tray 2 does work correctly. Yay! So now we know the
tray problem is in LibreOffice. However, the fonts render garbled. I
repeated with Okular and Adobe Reader, and got the same results.

I have not opened the PPD file in a text editor to see what it says. I
know PPDs are just text files, but I probably wouldn't understand much
of the syntax anyway.

I hope someone has other suggestions.