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From: David Chappell <David.Chappell@mail.trincoll.edu> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 12:23:37 -0500 Subject: Re: PPR: Supported printers Alain.Lachapelle@Heimannsystems.Com wrote: > Hello, > > Does the PPD directory at trincoll.edu with its hundreds of PPD files > means that PPR works equally good with all of them? From your > experience, do you think it is realistically possible to extend a succesful > printer interface with one printer, to a lot of printers or can there be > drastic differences in the, say, quality of status messages? What I mean > by printer interface is programatically sending a file to the printer then > reading ppop progress and ppop status to monitor the job. This works quite > well with a HP LJ5 SiMX. Now can I assume a working of same quality if I > change the printer for either a Lexmark, an Epson, a QMS, or a T ektronix > PostScript printer ? Or even a PostScript HP of different model? > > Regards, > > Alain > The PPD files are simply the complete set distributed by Adobe. They imply nothing. My experience is primarily with HP, QMS, Apple, and Canon printers. The "atalk" interface should show little difference since printers designed to support the PAP generally emulate a LaserWriter fairly well. The only thing I ever had trouble with was a Ricoh copier/printer with very buggy firmware. The "tcpip" interface is likely to produce more mixed results. Some products which support the AppSocket protocol support it only as a unidirectional protocol with no handshaking. These will work in a limited way if you set "feedback" to false. The next version of the tcpip interface will have at least some support for the SNMP printer MIB so reporting to printer status should be greatly improved. I am starting to implement "printer sniffing" i.e., automatic selection of interface programs and PPD files. I have already created a simple SNMP library and a library for sending PostScript queries. Unfortunately this is likely to require a database of printers. I recall an Internet project to create such a beast, but last time I looked the information they were collecting wasn't very useful.