Note: please don't spam any of the e-mail addresses which you see here. Follow this link if you want some addresses to misuse.
From: Marc Miller <_ADDRESS_ELIDED_@mailbox.ucdavis.edu> Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 23:47:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: PPR: PCL & majordomo index We agree. The PostScript is coming from the Adobe PostScript driver for Windows 95 (Adobe developed the standard, after all; their PostScript should be valid and even prints fine on our 8100's, now approaching the end of their warranty). We use that driver instead of the HP driver because with the increasing number of class web sites that depend on PDFs, the ability to print 2 or 4 pages per sheet of paper is very important. The HP postscript driver isn't successful in doing that with jobs coming out of Acrobat Reader. I've spoken to HP about that issue as well; they essentially are saying, "Use the PCL driver if you can" and "The Adobe driver and Adobe Acrobat Reader are Adobe's reign; we can't legally help you with that." Adobe, on the other hand, has basically told us that they don't provide any support for their public domain software, but through some finangling we managed to get a technical issue report filed with their support research team last week. We haven't received a call back. I get the feeling that Adobe is the source of the problem on multiple levels. They make their postscript technology difficult to get a hold of, so HP does their best to emulate the postscript (though the fact that their 8100's worked fine and the 8150's get upset about the Adobe dialect of postscript is very discomforting). They made the driver and the software we're trying to use, but won't provide support. For many reasons, switching to alternative PDF readers on our Windows and MacOS machines simply isn't an option, so we're stuck with either investing a lot more in paper for the PDF jobs or taking HP's advice to switch to PCL. On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, Damian Ivereigh wrote: > Hi Marc, > > I work at Cisco Systems where a my Team and I maintain about 6000 > printers most of which are HP's (including *many* HP8150's). We don't > actually use PPR, but we do exclusively use postscript. While I am no > way speaking for Cisco, HP position that "postscript is only emulated > and therefore no good" is really not acceptable as far as I am > concerned. If they sell a product that supports postscript then its > needs to do just that. > > We use postscript because we believe it is a vastly superior language > than PCL and it much better designed for postprocessing than PCL. > > Where are your postscript jobs coming from? Are you sure it is valid > postscript? > > Damian > > Marc Miller wrote: > > > > Alright, two vaguely related topics: > > > > 1. Our brand new HP LJ 8150DN printer is throwing out a lot of jobs, > > giving "invalidfont" command "deffont" errors. I talked to HP; they said > > their printers emulate PostScript but it's not really Adobe PostScript. > > So I rigged PPR to let PCL jobs go straight through (PCL is the printer's > > native language). I'm providing details of how I did that below, but the > > jist of the problem is that with it being passed straight through like > > that, we lose the page accounting. We get an "undef" error when the page > > accounting is turned on. Anyone know a way around that? > > > > 2. I wanted to see if PCL was a topic covered on this list before, but I > > couldn't figure out how to get "ppr-list-digest" as instructed on the FAQ > > web page. It says to send the help command to majordomo, but the help > > wasn't helpful. I tried doing a "get ppr-list ppr-list-digest" and "get > > index ppr-list" but that just gave me a "file not found" and a blank list > > of files. > > > > The PCL workaround: > > > > I'm using an LJ8150DN with the Windows 95 PCL 6 driver from HP. > > > > Rather than have Samba execute ppr, it scans the first 1 or 4 lines for a > > PostScript header, and if found sends the job through with the > > -Htransparent option. If in the first 14 lines it finds the text > > "HP-PCL" it also sends it through with the -Htransparent option. The > > printer is set to "trustme" and to be on the safe side (though it seems > > it's not really necessary since it isn't recognized as PCL) I've enabled > > the "passthru pcl" option. > > > > That works quite well, except for the page accounting. That's critical > > for a university like ours that caps the print quota user-by-user. > > > > ============================================================ > > /\/\arc ._|. /\/\iller (_ADDRESS_ELIDED_@mailbox.ucdavis.edu) > > Computer Room Consultant > > Information Technology/Lab Management > > ============================================================ > > I can be contacted through the Communication Center link from > > http://www.mother.com/~mjmiller/ > > -- > Damian Ivereigh > CEPS Team Lead > http://wwwin-print.cisco.com > Desk: +61 2 8446 6344 > Mob: +61 418 217 582 > > ============================================================ /\/\arc ._|. /\/\iller (_ADDRESS_ELIDED_@mailbox.ucdavis.edu) Computer Room Consultant Information Technology/Lab Management ============================================================ I can be contacted through the Communication Center link from http://www.mother.com/~mjmiller/