Re: PCL only printer

[Paul Yeatman <pyeatman@ucsd.edu>]

->>In response to your message<<-
  --received from Marc Wilson--
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 12:39:23PM -0800, Paul Yeatman wrote:
> > The main problem now is that almost everything prints in red or shades
> > of red.  When postscripts were not printing correctly before, what was
> > being printed was in black.  Now what should be black prints as red.
> 
> Yes, I've seen that before.  For me, that's what happens if I ask the 932C
> to print in less than Photo mode... darks come out very red while lighter
> colors seem to be fine.  That's why the script explicitly sets the quality
> when printing to the 932C vs the 1120C.

Well, in waiting for a reply about this, I decided to work more with
the stable packages which I had already downloaded:  foomatic-bin,
hpijs and packages on which they depend/recommend.  Foomatic-bin didn't
support my exact printer exactly so I decided to try to use as close a
DeskJet ###C xml file as possible (not knowing if it really works this
way but seems reasonable).  Using the xml file from foomatic-bin for an
HP DeskJet 920C seems to work fine, normal colors and all.  If there is
any consequence of not using the exact printer file from foomatic-bin
for my printer, I don't know what it would be yet.

My printcap entry for the HP 932C (or HP 920C, however you look at it),
once the appropriate stable packages are installed and using
foomatic-configure to make the entry, ended up looking like this:

	# Entry edited Fri Feb 27 13:04:23 2004 by foomatic-configure.
	# Additional configuration atop /etc/foomatic/lpd/jelly.lom
	jelly|here|:\
		:cm=desktop printer -- HP DeskJet 920C
		:sd=/var/spool/lpd/jelly:\
		:ppdfile=/etc/foomatic/jelly.ppd:\
		:lf=/var/log/lp-errs:\
		:filter_options= --lprng $J $Z /etc/foomatic/lpd/jelly.lom:\
		:lp=/dev/lp0:\
		:if=/usr/sbin/lpdomatic:\
		:force_localhost:\
		:sh:\
		:mx#0

> 
> > Not sure if this is due to earlier versions of software than
> > you are using.  I am using the (stable) versions of the following
> > 
> > 	hpijs          1.0.4-1
> > 	gs             6.53-3
> 
> ii  hpijs          1.5-1          HP Inkjet Server - Ghostscript driver for HP
> ii  gs             7.07-1         The Ghostscript Postscript interpreter
> 
> I don't know what the capabilities of hpijs 1.0.4 are, but it's VERY dated.
> The 1.5 version should be easy enough to build, if you feel the need.  You
> can probably build both of them from source on a Woody box... hpijs only
> deps on debhelper, and gs itself isn't much more extensive.  *Other* things
> dep on gs, though, so make sure you know what you're doing if you're going
> to build that.

I looked into building things myself but thought I'd try the above
first and since this seems to work I am happy with that for now.  The
first thing I ran into from trying to build Debian packages using
the testing source code was that things depended on "po-debconf" which
doesn't exist at all in Woody.  Not that this couldn't be built too but
it was enough to make me consider whether it was worth it and if I was
going to end up being knee deep in building packages just to get newer
versions of hpijs, foomatic-bin and/or gs.

> > Along that line, I haven't been able to figure out from the HP page yet
> > how to print a test page from the printer itself so that I can see what
> > colors are correctly printing.
> 
> Press and hold the Page Eject while the printer is turned on.  Let go after
> it loads a page.

Great to know.

Thanks and thanks for all the help in general, particularly,
encouragement that things could work using Debian and the new printer.

Paul

-- 
Paul Yeatman       (858) 534-9896        pyeatman@ucsd.edu
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