Re: Need advice on Postscript/PCL printer
Hello, thanks to you too for writing.
I didn't reply earlier because I've taken the time to look in my
bzipped archive and in the debian archives... I am sure that on
debian-laptop a message had been posted with the good way to print to
a LaserJet... (At the time I used/had to connect with Windoze for I
hadn't the weakmodem in this laptop running yet, then I had a
win-crash and all that mail went lost). I can't remember _when_ that
message appeared... gosh, the search engine doesn't find it (maybe
debian-laptop wasn't being archived yet).
Well, I guess I'll have to rename the thread "how to print to a PCL
(LaserJet4 emulation) printer", body: "Could anybody (re)tell how to
print to a PCL (LaserJet4 emulation) printer?" (actually, the Epson
EPL-5800 has Laserjet4 emulation, which is PCL5e, + PCL6 + other
matrix printers and HPGL stuff).
Even if it's not strictly Debian related infos, I'll add details below
for anybody interested among the Debian users just in the will to
share infos (and to say thanks for the infos I had), anybody who's not
interested in laser printers characteristics just stop here. I've
tried to compress and I hope the sometime-nested parentheses won't
make it too cryptic... track them with E-Macs ;-)
-----
Well, well, on Thursday evening when I came home and read your message
I had the Epson with me, I had just bought it. Actually, up to the
latest moment I was still in doubt, the Lexmark has cheap all-in-one
toner+photoconductor and I believe it has by default the "low
paper-output" which is nice for not-very-thick supports... then I told
definitely to myself "enough, I can't spend more time in choosing it,
I'll get the one that seems superior as hardware (onboard memory,
processor speed, possibility of true 1200dpi... and clear warranty,
while the contract coming with the Lexmark ["closed in the box which I
can't open and I don't have a copy", this is the vendor] was possibly
better for an office but possibly much worst to me) and in case I
really need it I'll buy the Postscript3 ROM, so I'll have a fully
equipped printer and not half-of-this-and-half-of-that.
Well this printer is really _fast_, I'm glad I didn't buy an inkjet
(which I would destroy soon just printing scores for medium-to-big
band).
But the software coming with it... this is my first contact with Epson
and frankly speaking I'm not enthusiast :-/
The drivers coming with it are for windoze and Mac, there is also a
remote configuration utility running on DOS (which unexpectedly turns
out to be precious, so you can imagine what follows [question: what
for a Unix-only environment? I mean... no config buttons on the
printer, and no LCD... the instructions manual doesn't seem to speak
about anything else but configuring the printer from a connected
computer... I believe the Lexmark Optra E312 is the same, and maybe
lots of printers nowadays, but I'm a complete newbie here]).
(Apart from the "automatic OS recognition" of the CD-ROM coming from
Epson France, which fails detecting windoze just for it is the Italian
version, and which leads to investigating among the cryptic printers
numbering and drivers names and manually telling source paths during
install for it assumes you are installing from floppies) the driver
for windoze has some inconsistency problems (kind of the impossibility
to switch off RiTech [good for text but easily bad for graphics with
grey levels] at class 1200 or true 1200dpi, which resolution is just
interesting for grey scaled graphics [for text it doesn't seem to make
a change and long links among musical notes show the same degree of
imperfection, which is not much better than a brandnew cheaper inkjet
such as the HP840C at its higher resolution], but it can be done via
the DOS utility) and it says "reading printer status" but it doesn't,
it just relies on a "TSR" monitor to check the printer, which happens
once in a while (and seems to heavily get the system for a short
while, e.g. causing MIDI stuff to do kind of a little stop/jump), and
if it hasn't happened after the latest changes done e.g. via the DOS
remote config program then it happily shows a setup which is not the
current one, as the status sheet of the printer definitely points
out. More, the configuration dialogs showed by the windoze driver are
gently ignored by the printer if any application is still living which
has just printed even one only page to the printer but which is not
"holding" it any more, and this seems to happen also when the printer
spooler of windoze has been closed (more, the printer spooler of
windows fails with graphics, it just keeps the jobs without sending
them to the printer which is "ready to print", better close it and
print directly, ok no wonder).
Frankly speaking, 1200 is really nearly the same as 600dpi or "class
1200dpi". I was telling to myself "I could print the cover of some
demo CDs (I like B&W) when it happens that I just need even a few
copies"... :-/ well now I know that the Lexmark would do too.
That's all so far, thanks again for all the infos sent to me.
Nicola
On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 10:52:50AM -0400, jpenny@universal-fasteners.com wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 03:47:25AM +0200, Nicola Bernardelli wrote:
> > Thanks a lot for helping, Hubert and Joachim and Oliver. I wish they
> > were still producing those Kyocera :-( (I'll try some phone calls
> > anyway tomorrow err... this morning.)
> >
> > It's starting to be a bit painful to make a choice, I'd like to just
> > go and get it tomorrow morning... maybe.
> >
> > I just noticed that groff default output is Adobe Postscrip 3, so
> > common tools used in Linux assume PS3 (and I still have slink here, so
> > it's been a while so far), which may be one more reason to renounce
> > buying the Lexmark which has PS2...
>
> Man grops says that there is an option to get PS2. I have seldom
> seen PS3 output, in fact, there are many programs that use PS (original);
> I just don't see this as a problem.
>
> The only problem I have seen with the Lexmark is that they are
> not very good at all with envelopes.
>
> For a light duty printer, I like the NEC Superscript.
>
> Jim
>
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