[cups.general] Xerox Phaser 7400DN

[John Jason Jordan]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 14:59:44 -0800
Helge Blischke <h.blischke at acm.org> dijo:

>John Jason Jordan wrote:
>>>> 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.

>> 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
>>
>> 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.

>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.

Just minutes before receiving your e-mail I finally found a solution.

Yesterday I was desperately trying to print something for class and I
was running out of time. Finally I fired up Windows 2000 that I have
installed in Virtualbox. Previously I had set this printer up there. I
opened the PDF that I had exported from LibreOffice into Adobe Reader 
on Windows 2000, sent it to the printer and it printed flawlessly. The 
same file printed with garbled text from Adobe Reader on Linux.

After thinking about this I tried a few more things, including creating
a new Linux printer, but using the Windows PPD file instead of the one
in the Linux downloads section on xerox.com. 

When I print to this printer I get perfect output from Evince, Okular and 
Adobe Reader. But when I printed from LibreOffice I got garbled text. 
The print dialog  box in LibreOffice had been set to Postscript Level 2 
(because it wouldn't accept Level 3). So I changed it to PDF and tried 
again. Voilà! Perfect output!

Also, the printer trays now appear and work correctly.

So your observation that Linux CUPS defaults to PDF fits this scenario. 
However, before when I used the Linux PPD file the text was garbled 
regardless of what language setting I chose. So the other part of the 
solution was to discard the Linux PPD file, because evidently it is dreck.

Thanks for the help and suggestions.