Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on April 25, 2006 05:44 AM
### "...myself that's been setting up network printers on UNIX systems for the better part of twenty years."
Makes me really wonder how you did that, if you are even confused by a selection of network protocols... If you had said that you came from a Windows background, I'd sympathize with you and even understand you complaining...
But a dyed-in-the-wool Unix stalemate of 20 years standing?!? C'mon!
### "CUPS insists on passing Postscript through some sort of PS-to-PS filter"
Your application usually doesn't know about the device-specific printer options, and sends "device-independent" PostScript. (It would print, single-sided, loose-collection-of-sheets).
Some applications do even generated buggy PostScript, which does not print on every device.
If the device is expected to duplex, staple, fold, punch, use different paper for front and back covers, or deliver the output to a certain sorter bin, the commands to make the device do that need to be inserted into the PostScript job, making the file a "device dependent" one. (Different PS printers use different commands to do the same thing, such as tray selection, etc).
The pstops filter does both: sanitize and normalize buggy PostScript as good as it can. And insert device specific commands into the original PostScript, according to the targetted ouput device...
That filter does even more: assume you have a 40 page document, but you only want pages 5,11-16 and 34 printed -- pstops extracts those. Or it puts to logical pages on one sheet of paper, if you want this.
And in case the output target is a non-PS device: the downstream PS-to-something filter needs a normalized PS too...
Feeling better now?
### "The need for that filter isn't in any CUPS documentation that I've run across.)"
Honestly, you do not sound like you've run across much documentation in your 20 years of Unix, CUPS or not, and you do not sound like you're much interested either. I suspect my effort is likely to be very much in vain...
But have a look for instance here:
--> <a href="http://localhost:631/documentation.html" title="localhost">http://localhost:631/documentation.html</a localhost> (on any system that has CUPS installed...)
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Re:Congratulations
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on April 25, 2006 05:44 AM"...myself that's been setting up network printers on UNIX systems for the better part of twenty years."
Makes me really wonder how you did that, if you are even confused by a selection of network protocols... If you had said that you came from a Windows background, I'd sympathize with you and even understand you complaining...
But a dyed-in-the-wool Unix stalemate of 20 years standing?!? C'mon!
###
"CUPS insists on passing Postscript through some sort of PS-to-PS filter"
Your application usually doesn't know about the device-specific printer options, and sends "device-independent" PostScript. (It would print, single-sided, loose-collection-of-sheets).
Some applications do even generated buggy PostScript, which does not print on every device.
If the device is expected to duplex, staple, fold, punch, use different paper for front and back covers, or deliver the output to a certain sorter bin, the commands to make the device do that need to be inserted into the PostScript job, making the file a "device dependent" one. (Different PS printers use different commands to do the same thing, such as tray selection, etc).
The pstops filter does both: sanitize and normalize buggy PostScript as good as it can. And insert device specific commands into the original PostScript, according to the targetted ouput device...
That filter does even more: assume you have a 40 page document, but you only want pages 5,11-16 and 34 printed -- pstops extracts those. Or it puts to logical pages on one sheet of paper, if you want this.
And in case the output target is a non-PS device: the downstream PS-to-something filter needs a normalized PS too...
Feeling better now?
###
"The need for that filter isn't in any CUPS documentation that I've run across.)"
Honestly, you do not sound like you've run across much documentation in your 20 years of Unix, CUPS or not, and you do not sound like you're much interested either. I suspect my effort is likely to be very much in vain...
But have a look for instance here:
--> <a href="http://localhost:631/documentation.html" title="localhost">http://localhost:631/documentation.html</a localhost> (on any system that has CUPS installed...)
--> <a href="http://www.cups.org/cups-help.html" title="cups.org">http://www.cups.org/cups-help.html</a cups.org>
--> <a href="http://localhost:631/sum.html" title="localhost">http://localhost:631/sum.html</a localhost> (on any system that has CUPS installed...)
--> <a href="http://localhost:631/sam.html" title="localhost">http://localhost:631/sam.html</a localhost> (on any system that has CUPS installed...)
--> <a href="http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/CUPS-printing.html#id2603263" title="samba.org">http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-C<nobr>o<wbr></nobr> llection/CUPS-printing.html#id2603263</a samba.org>
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