Author Topic: Printer advice.  (Read 13233 times)

ivan

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Re: Printer advice.
« Reply #15 on: December 07, 2017, 11:27:18 am »
Installed the ppd I extracted to both PSPRINT and PSCRIPT on my old OS/2 Warp machine, pulled a printer template and filled in the necessary information and port and it prints in full colour without any problems.

I ended up doing the same on ArcaOS because the 'Install Printer' in the 'Printers' folder only wanted to install a cups printer for some strange reason.  Doing it manually now allows me to print from there as well.

I tried both the IBM PSCRIPT driver and the PSPRINT from Alex.  Comparing both there is no apparent difference in output so I have decided on using tthe PSPRINT driver because of its ability to embed TT fonts.

Thanks to all for your help.

Dariusz Piatkowski

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Re: Printer advice.
« Reply #16 on: December 07, 2017, 04:12:29 pm »
Installed the ppd I extracted to both PSPRINT and PSCRIPT on my old OS/2 Warp machine, pulled a printer template and filled in the necessary information and port and it prints in full colour without any problems....

NICE!!!

...I tried both the IBM PSCRIPT driver and the PSPRINT from Alex.  Comparing both there is no apparent difference in output so I have decided on using tthe PSPRINT driver because of its ability to embed TT fonts....

I think the idea of PSPRINT is a pretty good one, but of course depending on how many of the fonts you use are actually built-in to your particular printer the result may or may not be resounding.

In my case, when I specifically used fonts that are not built-in I found that the print jobs themselves got so much bigger (especially on docs which were a combination of different fonts but just a single page or a couple of pages only) that it occasionally took a while for the printer to render the job. Now this could be just a matter of printer engine capability, etc, etc...but in the end I stuck with the IBM PSCRIPT to just keep things moving smoothly.

Keep in mind, my printing is for home printing pursposes, very little fancy fonts, etc, etc...no business presentations here!

roberto

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Re: Printer advice.
« Reply #17 on: December 07, 2017, 04:18:35 pm »
People want printing to be simple, but expressing the printer capabilities in a PPD offers plenty of room for errors.
100% ok

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I don't know how to find errors in the PPD,
You can use cupstestppd.exe for test the ppd in cups. The problem in psprint, is that you can write him a love letter, and tell him it's a ppd, and he accepts it and also tells you that everything is correct. I have tried.

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nor do I have any idea how to report an error in Cups.
You can see var\log\cups\log...
But I've been trying to launch a gci printer, and I'm not capable. The problem here is that you can not see the log, until you deactivate cups daemond.

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Even if I did, what are the chances of getting a bug fix during the printer's lifetime? What I'd really like is some interactive program to query the printer and construct/test the PPD.
Yes, I wont too.

saludos

Pete

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Re: Printer advice.
« Reply #18 on: December 07, 2017, 06:43:53 pm »
Hi roberto

You could use cleanppd.cmd to prepare a ppd file for installing in psprint/pscript.drv - cleanppd is part of the psprint package and is installed in [BootDrive]:\sys\install\PRNDRV\PMDD_6 on ArcaOS systems.

You should be able to open the cups error log by selecting Administration -> View Error Log in the cups browser interface without stopping cupsd. Errors should be reported either on the eCUPS wiki http://trac.netlabs.org/ecups/report or the rpm ports wiki http://trac.netlabs.org/ports/report depending on whether you are using eCUPS or the rpm packaged cups.


Regards

Pete


roberto

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Re: Printer advice.
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2017, 10:37:55 pm »
Thanks Pete, your comments have helped me a lot. For me this of cups, it is very complex, but I keep trying, thank goodness that it is not a printer of work but of emergencies. It seems that sometimes to use cups you need the stars to be aligned.
saludos