How to teach CUPS to only print via postscript ?

m3t3or · 07-06-2013, 11:33 AM

I installed a postscript-driver for my old printer from the website of the manufactor ( no support on www.openprinting.org, this is the only working driver I found )
It does not matter for the issue, the printer is a Konica Minolta - Magicolor 4650EN.

With this driver I am able to print all kinds of postscript-files. (E.g. in the printer-settings in open-office, I can choose "printer-Language = postscript(driverlevel)" this will make the printer work like it should.
The default here is "pdf" ... but this makes the printer to print either only empty pages, or many pages full of rubbish.

But for e.g. firefox(iceweasel) I did not find such an option (to enable postscript-printing). So I have to file-print everything to a pdf, and than print this pdf with the "postscript-option" enabled ... however this is not very nice.

So is there a way to directly tell CUPS (or maybe some other level) to always directly use the postscript-protocol for my printer?
I heard of a2ps, but I dont know how/if I can auto-enable it for all prints I do.

My os is a Debian-Wheezy: 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.46-1 x86_64 GNU/Linux

jdkaye · 07-06-2013, 12:31 PM

Quote:

CUPS uses PPD drivers for all of its PostScript printers, and has even extended the concept to allow for PostScript printing to non-PostScript printing devices, by directing output through a CUPS filter. Such a file is no longer a standard PPD, but rather a "CUPS-PPD". CUPS clients usually read the current PPD file from the server every time a new print job is created.

Is this what you want?
Wouldn't it be simpler to just select "print to file" and select "postscript" as the format?
jdk

m3t3or · 07-07-2013, 12:13 PM

Yes, thanks, this looks promising, I will invest some more time to the CUPS doku when I have some free time. ( http://localhost:631/help/postscript-driver.html#CREATE )

Regarding your proposal: Than I have to print everything twice .. .first "print to file" and than open that file and print it for real.
But I would like to just press "print", no matter in which application, instead of messing around with temporary files each time I want to print something.
As well my wife is using the system, and she is not that much into technics .. so it should be easy and failsafe

jdkaye · 07-07-2013, 12:20 PM

Yes, I see your point but I'm surprised that the ppd driver doesn't give the option of allowing you to do just that. Anyway maybe that link will provide a solution. Good luck.
jdk

m3t3or · 07-22-2013, 05:20 AM

Ok, I know how it theoretically should work ... however for me it does not :X

I reconfigured the cups-filter-configuration (/usr/share/cups/mime/cupsfilters.convs and mime.convs ) by commenting all *topdf filters and uncommenting all *tops filters. E.g:

Code:

#application/postscript		application/pdf			22	pstopdf
...

(After that I restarted cups)

And I added "filters to use" to the driver-file (.ppd). I tested 3 different types of filter:

Code:

*cupsPreFilter: "application/pdf 66 pdftops"
... (similar for all types, like in the .convs file )

Code:

*cupsFilter2: "application/pdf application/vnd.cups-postscript 66 pdftops"
... (similar for all types, like in the .convs file)

Code:

*cupsFilter: "application/pdf 66 pdftops"
... (similar for all types, like in the .convs file)

I re-loaded the driver with cups each time ... however I still get the same problems. It seems like the filters are not used at all.
In the file "/var/log/cups/error_log" (I am logging with log-level debug2), I dont see anything about filter-usage.

Any idea what I am doing wrong? What can I do to get my filter-configuration to work?