Rant: Printing with cups
Wednesday, February 15. 2006, 22:19
Okay: If you regularly read my blog, you know that I'm a linux addict and free software fan. I really like my linux, I'm much more comfortable with it than the bad old days when I used this other system from this redmond company. I have the strong belief that free software is the better concept and will succeed on the long run. Just to make clear that this is a very rare situation when I rant about linux.
So let's start: Today I wanted to print some slides from a university lecture. They were landscape format and to save paper (52 pages), I wanted to print four of them on one page. A simple task one should think.
Started kpdf, clicked on print. As my cups was configured, I could select my printer, go to it's options and found a 4 pages on 1 option, so it seemed fine. Clicked on Print. Waited. Waited. Nothing happened.
Webbrowser, localhost:631, no printing jobs. No errors. Nothing.
Looked at the logfile (this is at least the point where every common user wouldn't come further). Nothing that helped, just a note to change loglevel to debug. Did that. Restarted cups. Re-sent page. Logfile showed up some segfault in a gs-command. Damn, why can't just the interface tell me that?
From the small knowledge I have about linux-printing, I knew that there are various implementations of ghostscript. Looked into portage, found three, replaced ghostscript-esp with ghostscript-afpl. Restarted cups.
Tried to print, my printer actually did something. Well, it looked interesting. I had the third page in the upper left corner and about a third of the fourth page beside it. Beside that, far smaller than it should be, nearly unreadable.
Ok, there are some other pdf-viewers out there. Tried kghostview. Print, select 4 pages option, etc. Printer started doing something.
The result was really interesting: The pages were printed white on white.
Next try, evince. As evince is a pretty new gnome-tool, it sticks to the gnome guidelines: Less config-dialogs, less features. It just had no possibility to print four pages on one. Oh, should I mention that evince crashed when I wanted to close the printing dialog?
Gave up. Will read it on the screen.
Conclusion: Free software had some great success in the last years. Today we have systems that can compete to commercial ones in many areas for common usage. Some areas on the other side are really horrible. Printing is one of them.
If we really want to compete on the desktop, we need to get such basic tasks to »just work«.
So let's start: Today I wanted to print some slides from a university lecture. They were landscape format and to save paper (52 pages), I wanted to print four of them on one page. A simple task one should think.
Started kpdf, clicked on print. As my cups was configured, I could select my printer, go to it's options and found a 4 pages on 1 option, so it seemed fine. Clicked on Print. Waited. Waited. Nothing happened.
Webbrowser, localhost:631, no printing jobs. No errors. Nothing.
Looked at the logfile (this is at least the point where every common user wouldn't come further). Nothing that helped, just a note to change loglevel to debug. Did that. Restarted cups. Re-sent page. Logfile showed up some segfault in a gs-command. Damn, why can't just the interface tell me that?
From the small knowledge I have about linux-printing, I knew that there are various implementations of ghostscript. Looked into portage, found three, replaced ghostscript-esp with ghostscript-afpl. Restarted cups.
Tried to print, my printer actually did something. Well, it looked interesting. I had the third page in the upper left corner and about a third of the fourth page beside it. Beside that, far smaller than it should be, nearly unreadable.
Ok, there are some other pdf-viewers out there. Tried kghostview. Print, select 4 pages option, etc. Printer started doing something.
The result was really interesting: The pages were printed white on white.
Next try, evince. As evince is a pretty new gnome-tool, it sticks to the gnome guidelines: Less config-dialogs, less features. It just had no possibility to print four pages on one. Oh, should I mention that evince crashed when I wanted to close the printing dialog?
Gave up. Will read it on the screen.
Conclusion: Free software had some great success in the last years. Today we have systems that can compete to commercial ones in many areas for common usage. Some areas on the other side are really horrible. Printing is one of them.
If we really want to compete on the desktop, we need to get such basic tasks to »just work«.
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You rae correct that cups is not really that good often, but I can recommend gtklp to do your printing (of pdf's / txt). You can configure almost everything and for me it has always worked.
I have very much the same experience - basic printing works just fine by now, but everything more complex (multiple pages on one, etc.) most of the time produces really horrible results.
What I get quite often is my printer spewing out hundreds of pages of strange control characters. Not that much fun if you leave the room while printing ...
What I get quite often is my printer spewing out hundreds of pages of strange control characters. Not that much fun if you leave the room while printing ...
Hanno.. we in the Scribus team recommend Adobe Reader above anything else for a very good reason. It will take awhile for the rest to catch up.
Take a look at this:
http://www.zorq.net/dump/screenshot-150206.jpg
Is that not evince doing exactly what you wanted?
(I haven't printed this to test as I don't have a printer to hand)
http://www.zorq.net/dump/screenshot-150206.jpg
Is that not evince doing exactly what you wanted?
(I haven't printed this to test as I don't have a printer to hand)
You're right, but I didn't find this because it crashes on my system when I click the paper-tab.
I can completely agree with you and I think the last sentence is the most important part of your post.
Hmm, dunno if that's your problem, but maybe you'd be going better by getting the pdf into postscript (i've learnd that cups and pdf.. not always what you want) and then using the options of lp command directly from commandline. NOthing for every user but as a
last resort, it might be help
last resort, it might be help
Printing is a serious topic, true. But there are ways to get to a nearly paper-free office - I've been to a small company where they got off from 95% of all paper related stuff - just their TODO list was in paper :-P
I've had many problems with printers on my linux system, true. but I've also had many problems with 'em on macos x and also that other operating system (can't remember the name, r8 now :). So printing is a problem not only for oss.
I've got a big antipathy against being lazy, but when it comes to installing printer drivers, I'm a bit proud and glad about it. This also profits the environment, cause every not printed page is some grams of paper less. I've heard of a ecological footprint of 100kg (water, chemicals, wood or recycling paper, ...) on 1kg paper.
I've had many problems with printers on my linux system, true. but I've also had many problems with 'em on macos x and also that other operating system (can't remember the name, r8 now :). So printing is a problem not only for oss.
I've got a big antipathy against being lazy, but when it comes to installing printer drivers, I'm a bit proud and glad about it. This also profits the environment, cause every not printed page is some grams of paper less. I've heard of a ecological footprint of 100kg (water, chemicals, wood or recycling paper, ...) on 1kg paper.
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Hanno referred on his problems with printing under Linux a few days ago, I had myself an annoying issue today: I had a photo from my digicam and wanted to print it scaled on one page in A4 format with The Gimp. The sad result is that I was not successful.
Tracked: Feb 17, 19:48