Re: is a2ps broken?
Personally, a2ps has been broken for years because it doesn't handle unicode.
Quoting rlharris@oplink.net (rlharris@oplink.net):
> With Lenny and a HP4100 PostScript printer, a two-pages-per-sheet spread
> printed by a2ps is cut off on both the left and the right.
Left and right wrt the sheet of paper, or wrt the original pages
which, presumably, have been rotated by 90° for printing 2-up.
> A search with google reveals that a problem of this sort arose ten or
> twelve years ago, but I see no current reports.
>
> Papersize is configured for "letter" 8.5 x 11 inches.
Two checks: whether a2ps thinks it's printing to A4 which is longer
and narrower than Letter, and whether a2ps is not allowing for the
unprintable area at the top and bottom of the paper on many printers.
(It's had special deskjet margins ever since I can remember.)
> With previous distributions, a2ps has worked properly right out of the
> box. I have been running Jessie since it became available as "beta", but
> I did not notice the problem until recently, so perhaps an upgrade of a2ps
> is at fault?
Anything is possible, but I notice that the latest upstream change to
a2ps is stamped 2007-12-29 Masayuki Hatta <mhatta@gnu.org>.
Of course, it's always possible therefore that Lenny's version is
positively 20th century!
Is is significant that the *first* match of "paper" in
/usr/share/doc/a2ps/changelog.Debian.gz is the line
* libpaper support is missing in the upstream. I'll port it ASAP.
My own use of a2ps was entirely in an international environment,
ie A3, A4 and A5 paper sizes. I'm still trying to get to grips with
the archaic sizes here; it's like going back to junior school.
Cheers,
David.
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