[cups.general] Xerox Phaser 7400DN

[Helge Blischke]

John Jason Jordan wrote:

> 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.

As this printer has been put out of service some time ago at our company, I 
have no chance to do real tests now.
But I suspect the problems with PDF printing is due to the fact that 
(nearly) all Linux distros recently switched to PDF as the standard/default 
print job format. The printer itself does not offer native PDF printing, so 
there is some cups filter used to convert PDF to PostScript. 
Depending on the make of that filter there may be problems with certain 
types of fonts.

My suggestion is to revert your CUPS installation to PostScript as 
default/standard print job format or use another pdf to ps filter.

To give you further advice, I'd need 
- your /etc/cups/*.convs and /usr/share/cups/mime/*.convs
- information on your pdftops filter (/usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops)
(you may send me the filter binary; I have 2 differenv virual Linux 
installations working)
And, just for interest, send me one of the PDFs that exhibit the garbled 
font(s) for me to have a look into.

Helge

PS: you may send me the files to 
h dot blischke at acm dot org