Actually I don't now a thing about printing on linux, but after setting up cups, I am able to print from all my KDEapps by using the nice kprinter dialog.
The problem is that I don't know what commands to use to print something. I'd just like to know how you print things like images, let's say from the gimp. Or pdf-files from acrobat or xpdf...

When I use the default settings, the only thing my printer (HP8320) puts on the paper is:

* With xpdf or Acrobat:
Error: /invalidfont in -dict-
Operand stack:
HFGCHE+Wingdings-Identity-H --di

* With gimp:
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%Creator: Print plug-in V4.2 for GIMP/Gimp-print 4.2.5 (24 Jan 20


I didn't change any setting since I really don't know anything about it, so maybe if some-one could tell me how to configure a HP3820.

Thanks to everyone who read this far and replies!

Setting up printer drivers manually is way over my head these days. One thing that sold me on KDE was that everything in this area seemed to work.

For PDF I can just print from Acrobat Reader. The print dialog has 'kprinter' as the default print command and works fine.

I haven't tried to print from GIMP, but OpenOffice works OK. The printers I installed from KDE show up in both the OO and GIMP print dialogs.

If this does not work for you I am pretty sure your printing software is not set up correctly. But like I say, I just rely on the distro packagers to get that right.

In the fairly recent pre-CUPS past many apps generated postscript code (as GIMP is doing in your case) and the printing software would filter it through ghostscript, which has built in drivers for many types of printer.

From what I can guess from the config files in /etc/cups, CUPS is using something similar to interface to my simple HP inkjet.

No they do do show up, it just doesn't print. It does print from KDE apps, OO works as well...

Pleazzz can anyone help me, I am really getting it on my nerves from always having to switch apps just to print something or first converting to ps and then printing.

Another thing, I noticed when clicking on 'setup printer...' in the Gimp printing dialog, my HP3820 printer is set up as a Postscript Level 2 printer. There are a lot of specific HP printer types in the list, but not the 'HP Deskjet 3820'.
Maybe I have to set it up by using drivers for older types? Does anybody have an idea?

Now GIMP seems to work... I downloaded the ppd-file for hpijs 1.3, but that didn't work at all. I noticed somewhere on a site that HP3820 is compatible with the HP Deskjet 900 drivers and that is correct. The only problem is the printing quality, but I can live with that...

I installed hpijs-1.4, this didn't solve anything, not even by using the ppd-file that came with the package itself.

Still what could be the cause of the error I get when trying to print pdf? It seems like I have a font missing... What fonts should I always have and where do I get them. If I remember well wingdings is a windoze font, but I don't have windoze.

Could someone help me here, plz?

I tried to print from GIMP with the same result as you.

But now I have it working. Here is what I did. In the GIMP print dialog leave the printer type as Postscript Level 2 but in the GIMP printer setup sub-dialog set the 'command' to

lpr -PHP640C

(Change HP640C to whatever printer name you have set up in KDE to print your images).

I'm guessing that GIMP then assumes it is writing to a Postscript printer, but CUPS sees the postscript coming and filters it appropriately.

I don't know if this produces the best possible results, especially if you have one of the printers listed by the GIMP print dialog. But it's better than nothing

EDIT: I see our messages just crossed.

Indeed I'll try it as soon as possible, thanks for your reaction... I was worrying nobody would respond to my posts, it would be the first time here on LQ .

Sorry, it doesn't even respond. The print job does not come up in the cups printing queue.

GIMP also works for me if I just put set 'kprinter' as the command in the GIMP printer setup. Then I get the KDE printer dialog and can choose the printer there.

Is your faulty PDF produced by MS-Word by any chance? I did a bit of searching and there was a rumour Microsoft might have done a bit of 'embracing and extending' of the PDF standard

Printing from gv (ghostview) is another thing to try.

I don't now, but it could be a converted Powerpoint Slideshow...

kprinter does exactly the same as the lp or lpr command, one strange thing though...
when I give as command gv, I get an empty document. I always tought everything was converted to postscript before being printed, so what I expected was to see a ps-file.

Maybe this leads somewhere, I really don't know anything about the subject, so I don't have a clue where I have to start searching for answers...

[Edit:]I just tried printing this page from galeon, with all the commands we've tried so far, no result. I also noticed I've said OO works, unfortunatly I was wrong, I haven't tested it yet. I mixed it up with a setup of an other pc.
It seems as if the problem is in reaching the printing queue, not in really in printing the thing. In gimp the reason for the strange error message was the -arow flag.

How about just the command line

% kprinter somedoc.ps (or .pdf)

AFAIK that is all these apps are doing anyway. Otherwise I am pretty much out of suggestions.

I guess you can print a test page from KDE control center OK? With ghostview I was thinking maybe you could try printing pdf from the gv application but if nothing else works there is no reason to suppose that would.

Also, check the log files in /var/log/cups for error messages.

This works, that's the strange part... This is how I print for now from non-kdeapps, by first converting it to ps and then 'kprinter <fn>'.
It seems like some apps don't send the ps through, the kprinter dialog appears, but when I print, nothing happens.