[cups] printing files of type PJL encapsulated PostScript document text

[Helge Blischke]

> Am 10.11.2016 um 20:25 schrieb Matthias Apitz <guru at unixarea.de>:
> 
> El día Thursday, November 10, 2016 a las 11:48:42AM -0500, James Cloos escribió:
> 
>>>>>>> "MA" == Matthias Apitz <guru at unixarea.de> writes:
>> 
>> MA> $ file muster.pcl
>> MA> muster.pcl: PJL encapsulated PostScript document text
>> 
>> Even though file(1) calls it PJL encapsulated PostScript, it is indeed
>> pcl.  Look at the file with, eg, less(1) and you'll see:
>> 
>> 12345X at PJL
>> @PJL COMMENT CIB format/pcl 5.8.3a.79433 - www.cib.de
>> @PJL ENTER LANGUAGE=PCL
>> 
>> at the start.
> 
> I looked even with a hex editor into the file and skipped the first 95
> bytes to get the first ESC-E, i.e. I saw those strings too;
> 
>> If the printer supports pcl you can send it with -o raw.
>> 
>> Ie, try:  lp -d $PRINTER -o raw muster.pcl
> 
> the flag '-o raw' does the same as '-l'; and even with sending the PCL
> file directly with netcat to the printer shows the same result;
> something must be magic in this file, because at home with my HP MFP M277
> it prints as it should.
> 
> Someone knows a good tool to print the PCL commands in a file in human
> readable form to investigate this?
> 
> 	matthias
> 
> -- 

I’m just deriving a filter, pcltops (or pcltopdf) from my xpstopdf filter. 
A preliminary version will be available over the weekend; still open questions for me are
how to automatically determine the PCL dialect (PCL3..5, PCL6, PCLXL, RTL) and how 
to make sure the filter has access to the needed about 80 TrueType fonts (e.g. urwfonts from artifex).

Helge