Printer related

From Helpful

These are primarily notes
This is probably not going to be complete in any real sense, and exists to contain bits of useful information.

See also Paper sizes

Contents

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Printer sharing

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Printing services/protocols

  • IPP: Internet Printing Protocol
    • IP-based protocol
    • allows access control, encryption
    • Networked (laser) printers are often IPP-based. (general-purpose print server devices are often LPR and/or IPP)


  • CUPS
    • IPP-based
    • local/remote manager for local/remote (to it) printers (because of a pluggable filter system)
    • over HTTP, also has web-based management
    • has utilities that receives commands from SysV and LPR style commands
    • can take PPD (PostScript Printer Description) drivers to address remote IPP printers



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Print languages / communication

This article/section is a stub — probably a pile of half-sorted notes and assertions some of which may well be wrong, and not verified as a whole. Feel free to add or refine.

Perhaps the most commonly supported printer formats (by printers and/or their drivers):

  • Plain text - sending plain text will lead many printers to imitate a monospace-font line printer
  • PJL (Printer Job Language, also from HP) was made for job separation, printer configuration, status readback and such. It was designed as a job manager around PCL, but has been adopted into various other printers, particularly PostScript-capable printers(verify), probably because it allows printer language switching (so is not tied to PCL). [1]
  • PCL, used by HP laserjets, other HP printers, and some other brand printers. It is/was in some ways a competitor to PostScript. [2]. Currently most relevant:
    • PCL 5
    • PCL 5e - more font features
    • PCL 5c - color support
    • PCL 6 Standard - equivalent to 5e/5c (backwards compatibility)
    • PCL 6 Enhanced (formerly PCL XL) - can be faster, a few more features(verify)
  • HP-GL is a printer control language developed for plotters, eventually adopted by most plotters. Hewlett-Packard printers regularly support HPGL in addition to PCL. HP-GL/2 is an extension of HP-GL (added line width, binary transfer(verify))
  • Postscript - may often be the least proprietary, easiest to implement, but does not offer any printer-specific cleverness (perhaps see also Postscript notes)


Unsorted:

  • HP-RTL (subset of PCL used for raster images in plotter files)
  • MCL (Macro Command Language, used in specific-purpose standalone-ish printers?(verify))


To read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CUPS-block-diagram.svg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_server

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foomatic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RLPR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Computer_printing

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CUPS notes

These are primarily notes
This is probably not going to be complete in any real sense, and exists to contain bits of useful information.

Is a fairly pluggable filter system that supports many formats; see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Unix_Printing_System#Filter_system


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PPD

When a printer is PostScript-compatible, it regularly has a PPD (Postscript Printer Definition), which are text files that describe a printer, features, and some of the basic command set. They can be seen as simple information about the printer, including how to talk to it to use it as a PostScript printer.

CUPS uses PPDs to support PostScript-compatible printers (...that choose to provide a PPD).

Note that this will not provide some of the more specialized features that the printer may support if the computer were talking to it with proprietary software (think photo printing, detailed status messaging, trays, duplex printing, etc.), although this does not matter for most networked document printing needs.


See e.g.

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Printer feeds multiple pages

Various paper is fairly likely to pack and stick to each other while in packaged form. To separate the pages, bend the stack and fan the pages with your thumb on the side the paper will be picked up (or both).


Printers may deal with warped and bent pages badly, and paper that has already gone through the printer may fit that description.

See also Paper_sizes#Weight.2Fsturdiness

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Errors

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CUPS errors

This article/section is a stub — probably a pile of half-sorted notes and assertions some of which may well be wrong, and not verified as a whole. Feel free to add or refine.

Administration errors: 

client-error-not-possible

...often shows up in the cups error log as something like: 

CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer: Unauthorized

(or for for similar actions) This means that the effective user is not a printer administrator. Do the printer administration as one of those instead.

Note: If you are working on a workstation, it may be easier to tell CUPS to simply trust everyone on the same computer. Manually doing so means editing cupsd.conf and restarting CUPS.


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PCL XL Error

PCL XL errors come from use of PCL6, which seems to be relatively strict.

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MissingData

PCL XL error 
        Subsystem:  IMAGE
        Error:      MissingData
        Operator:   ReadImage
        Position:   15

(Position can vary)

Seems to be a combination of driver and print format, and seems to happen on pages with images (including PDFs made of images of text, and other cases of text printed as images).


It seems easiest to consider this a driver bug and try another driver, with the same document (page).

If using a PCL6 variant and there is a PCL5 variant of the driver, try that. Depending on the driver you choose, this may just work, or be a faster-printing lower-resolution, monochrome-instead-of-color workaround, etc.

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Out of memory

This article/section is a stub — probably a pile of half-sorted notes and assertions some of which may well be wrong, and not verified as a whole. Feel free to add or refine.

The job was contained complex things to be processed in the printer, which required more memory than available in the printer. Often seen in laser printers, and other PostScript printers.


Can be caused by

  • high DPI setting (lowering this is often the simplest, and even only way to do anything about this error)
  • fairly little memory considering the higher complexity of modern documents. Ten-year-old laserprinters can often be fitted with more memory -- but this can be fairly expensive, as the type of memory may be specific, or just not produced much anymore (e.g. EDO RAM).
  • graphics elements like overly detailed shapes, soft fonts, and such. You generally have little control over these.
  • Drivers (I've seen notes that XP's PCL drivers for (HP?) laserprinters, if present, may be slower but avoid memory errors more than the non-PCL driver, perhaps because they do more on the computer side)
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Printer ink

These are primarily notes
This is probably not going to be complete in any real sense, and exists to contain bits of useful information.
This article/section is a stub — probably a pile of half-sorted notes and assertions some of which may well be wrong, and not verified as a whole. Feel free to add or refine.


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Canon

Ink cartridges that have a chip

  • (e.g. many for the PIXMA series)
  • can be replaced with a canon-brand new cartridge
  • can be replaced with a cartridge with a chip that has been reset (cheaper)
  • can be replaced with a cartridge without chip (cheaper yet, but you have to move the chip, click through a few dialogs, and deal with the fact that it will not give information about ink level anymore)
  • may be syringe-refillable (a little bother, and you have to know the color is correct or don't mind readjusting colors)


  • CLI-8C
  • CLI-8M
  • CLI-8Y
  • CLI-8BK (dye ink for photo detail, like the colors)
  • PGI-5BK ('PGBK': pigment ink, for text, intended to be longer-lasting and more waterproof)


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Chip transfer

This article/section is a stub — probably a pile of half-sorted notes and assertions some of which may well be wrong, and not verified as a whole. Feel free to add or refine.
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