Re: Firefox (other GTK3 apps?) sends PDF to PostScript printer

[tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost]

Le Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 10:20:26AM -0500, John D. Baker a écrit :
>[...]
> 
> The print dialog only offers Print to PDF, but down at the bottom there
> is "Print using the system print dialog..." which brought up the familiar
> print dialog I was used to.
> 
> The result of "Print to LPR", however, spewed PDF to my printer, not
> the PostScript it speaks (it is a Real Printer(tm) which lives on my
> LAN).  Thus it emptied its paper trays printing a few lines of gibberish
> on the top and/or bottom of each page.
> 
> A quick search seems to indicate that GTK3, like QT5, has removed LPR/LPD
> print support and with it, PostScript output generation.  It seems that
> one MUST install "that piece of crap that breaks printing completely"
> (CUPS) to translate PDF back to PostScript and be yet another intermediate
> interface between an application and LPR.
> 
> That is, if one wishes to print directly from such applications.  The
> other workaround is to print/save/export/etc. to PDF and use an external
> application to read the file and send Postscript to the printer (xpdf,
> gv, etc.).

Not for xpdf anymore. They went from Motif to Qt (I fail to see the
improvement...) and the result is that xpdf doesn't print in PS anymore.
One has to use pdf2ps (if the size of the paper is a well known one and
matches your default; if not, you must use gs(1) directly "low level").

(I have also a PostScript printer on my LAN. And I use too LPR because
it does what it is instructed too---and trying to use CUPS reminds me
of fighting against MS Windows printing where there is no two nodes that
print the same document the same way and never two versions of a driver
for the same printer that handle the job the same way...)
-- 
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                     http://www.kergis.com/
                    http://kertex.kergis.com/
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