Printer prints landscape when I specify portrait.

bagley · 12-20-2006, 02:41 PM

I have a Brother HL2040 laser printer connected to the parallel port of my FC3 system (HL2060 driver). It works as expected when I print from gedit or OO but from Firefox (1.0.7) or Thunderbird, it prints in landscape mode and feeds paper from the manual slot even though I have specified portrait mode and the automatic or the upper tray. It used to print OK from every app but I have updated a number of apps in the last month and apparently broke something.

Here are the Firefox about:config entries containing "orientation"

print.postscript.orientation default string portrait
print.printer_PostScript/HL2040.print_orientation user set integer 0
print.tmp.printerfeatures.PostScript/HL2040.can_change_orientation user set boolean true
print.tmp.printerfeatures.PostScript/HL2040.orientation.0.name user set string portrait
print.tmp.printerfeatures.PostScript/HL2040.orientation.1.name user set string landscape
print.tmp.printerfeatures.PostScript/HL2040.orientation.count user set integer 2
print.tmp.printerfeatures.PostScript/HL2040.supports_orientation_change user set boolean true

farslayer · 12-21-2006, 07:51 AM

Just out of curiosity.. if you select landscape does it then print portrait ?

Have you tried creating a new Profile in Firefox, to see if the problem is related to a screwy profile ?

bagley · 12-21-2006, 12:41 PM

farslayer,
Thanks for the reply.

When I specify "Portrait", I get the following where "p" is the physical paper and "f" is the printed frame. The image on the frame is in portrait mode.

Code:

          ppppppppppppppppppppp
          p                   p
          p                   p
          p                   p
          p                   p
      ffffffffffffffffffffffffp
      f   p                  fp
      f   p                  fp
      f   p <- Top of frame  fp
      f   p                  fp
      f   p                  fp
      f   p                  fp
      ffffffffffffffffffffffffp
          ppppppppppppppppppppp

When I specify "Landscape", I get the following. The image on the frame is in landscape mode.

Code:

          ppppppppppppppppppppp
          p                   p
          p                   p
          p                   p
          p                   p
      ffffffffffffffffffffffffp
      f   p                  fp
      f   p                  fp
      f   p   Top of frame   fp
      f   p        |         fp
      f   p        V         fp
      f   p                  fp
      ffffffffffffffffffffffffp
          ppppppppppppppppppppp

I don't think it's a Firefox problem because I get the same behavior with Thunderbird and the Acrobat Reader.

Robert Diggs · 12-21-2006, 03:41 PM

Bagley,

I actually used to run into this problem quite a bit when i used to work at Fedex Kinko's. It usually had something to do with faulty PPD's (postscript printer drivers). There would be an updated version available, we'd have to download it and reinstall it. However, i don't know Linux well enough to be able to decypher the configuration file that you provided to tell you what's wrong. let me know happens.

Regards,

Brandon

farslayer · 12-21-2006, 07:41 PM

I would say it's a ppd problem as well.. you said you are using 2060 ppd for a 2040 printer.. does the 2060 print landscape by default ? (feed the paper sideways ? some printers do)

You may want to roll back to a older version of the driver a model or two below your current printer.

Alternately you could manaully edit the ppd file, to change the paper layout, and printable and non-printable areas.. a ppd file is nothing more than a big text file that defines your printers capabilities to the print engine.. they are very readable, and the entire spec for them is available on Adobes website..

I have done minor modifications in ppd files with great success in the past.. but like I said the issues I was addressing were very minor.

bagley · 12-23-2006, 05:57 PM

Upon further examination, I've redefined the problem. It's not a portrait/landscape problem. In both cases, the printed frame is the correct size but it is rotated 90 degrees and only part of it fits on the physical page.

Quote:

Originally Posted by farslayer

I would say it's a ppd problem as well.. you said you are using 2060 ppd for a 2040 printer.. does the 2060 print landscape by default ? (feed the paper sideways ? some printers do)

You may want to roll back to a older version of the driver a model or two below your current printer.

It worked fine for over a year using the 2060 driver.

Quote:

Alternately you could manaully edit the ppd file, to change the paper layout, and printable and non-printable areas.. a ppd file is nothing more than a big text file that defines your printers capabilities to the print engine.. they are very readable, and the entire spec for them is available on Adobes website..

I have done minor modifications in ppd files with great success in the past.. but like I said the issues I was addressing were very minor.

I don't see anything in the ppd file that would rotate the print image. Anyway, I don't think it's a CUPS problem because I did http://localhost:631 (using Firefox) and printed a test page that came out OK.

bagley · 12-23-2006, 08:18 PM

I tried lpoptions to see what the current options are:

Code:

$ lpoptions -p HL2040
job-sheets=none,none cpi=12 lpi=7 page-bottom=86 page-left=57 page-right=57 page-top=72 scaling=100 wrap=true InputSlot=manual orientation-requested=4

Aha! Somehow two rogue options got specified. All I must do is remove them.

Code:

$ lpoptions -p hl2040 -r InputSlot -r orientation-requested

I did and the printer now works as I expect it and as it did formerly.

redwing57 · 05-06-2007, 08:02 PM

Thanks for the followup on this post. I had a similar problem with a printer under CentOS 4. The problem surfaced after moving my HP Photosmart P1000 to a print server. I ran lpoptions and was able to fix it.

Code:

lpoptions -p Photosmart-P1000

The problem parameter was orientation-requested=4. I removed it as recommended.

Code:

lpoptions -p Photosmart-P1000 -r orientation-requested

Thanks for the help! I just wish I understood this.