Andrew Sackville-West wrote, in part:
Well, hnmmm, here's a thought. I see this problem only when printing from iceweasel and gnucash and guess what... they both are printing html pages (gnucash report generator produces html). I wonder if that's the common thread. Have you tried printing from other browsers? Maybe there is a common html->ps library that is the source of the problem...
What I don't know -- what Donald Rumsfeld would call a known unknown -- where the role of the browser -- or other application having a printing capability ends and CUPS takes over. Presumably the application decides what is to be printed and up to a point how it should be formatted (witness for example the printer options in the Firefox file menu).
This info is then sent to CUPS which probably has its own ideas about formatting. If there is a conflict between the application and CUPS, it looks as though CUPS wins -- even to the extent of screwing up how the content should appear on the page.
Yes, investigating how printing from other applications, including other browsers, works may prove revealing -- Donald Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns. I may add that I did not have this problem when I used lprng instead of cups.
Regards, Ken Heard Toronto, Canada