Re: [evince] Postscript 2 ?



Excerpts from Ronald F. Guilmette's message of dom ene 08 21:24:59 +0100 2012:
> 
> In message <1326018842-sup-3761@charizard>, 
> Carlos Garcia Campos <carlosgc gnome org> wrote:
> 
> >>Is there any way to tickle evince into outputting
> >>Postscript 2, rather than Postscript 3?
> >
> >Evince uses GTK+ printing system, that uses PS2 or 3 depending on the
> >information given in the ppd file of the printer. See the code:
> >
> >http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/tree/modules/printbackends/cups/gtkprint=
> >backendcups.c#n336
> >
> >It uses level 2 by default, so it seems that the ppd file contains
> >LanguageLevel = 3
> 
> Well now, this is most perplexing.
> 
> See, I'm on FreeBSD.  I did install the cups port, but only because certain
> other things would not build & install unless I did.
> 
> In practice, I am never using CPUS.  CPUS includes an entire fancy schmancy
> spooling system, which I found to have essentially no actual usefulness in
> the context of a single-user personal workstation.  And it has one effect
> that annoyed me greatly... it dramatically slowed down everything I tried to
> print.  So I've just jiggerd things so that I have a short stand-in script
> (which I wrote) which I've installed as a replacement for the stock
> /usr/bin/lpr (and also /usr/local/bin/lpr).  It just takes the input file
> and shoves it out rather directly to the printer device file.  This works
> great, actually, and as long as the file is either plain text or Postscript
> (2), it just shoots right out, with essentially no delay, to my good old
> trusty HP LaserJet 3015.
> 
> When I select "print" from the evince "File" sub-menu, I am offered three
> choices, to wit:
> 
>     Print to File
>     Print to LPR
>     rfg-Laserjet3015 SOHO
> 
> I always choose the middle one, because (as I've said) I am _not_ using the
> whole fancy schmancy CPUS spooling system (which I would be trying to use
> if I selected the final option above).
> 
> Well, perhaps I should have said that I _almost_ always use the "Print to LPR"
> option.  I have used the "Print to File" option on occasion, and indeed, that's
> the way that I found out that evince was outputting Postscript 3 files, rather
> than Postscript 2, which is all my LaserJet understands.
> 
> So anyway, I've never even heard of anything called a "ppd" file before.  But
> find(1) is my friend.  So I searched in my /usr/local directory (where all of
> the files associated with FreeBSD non-base ports go) and I found a directory
> called /usr/local/etc/cups/ppd and sure enough, that has one (and only one)
> file in it, and that file is called "rfg-Laserjet3015.ppd" and that file
> does indeed contain a line saying:
> 
>    *LanguageLevel: "3"
> 
> (And that is actually wrong for the 3015... it should be 2, not 3, but we
> can skip over that point for now.)
> 
> Anyway, as I have noted, I am _not_ routinely printing to "rfg-Laserjet3015".
> In fact I am _never_ printing to that.  I am always printing via my "lpr"
> script (option "Print to LPR").  So the obvious question now confronts me:
> Where can I diddle the "LanguageLevel" setting so that it will affect evince's
> output when I select "Print to LPR" ?
> 
> And likewise, where can I diddle the "LanguageLevel" setting so that it will
> affect evince's output when I select "Print to File"?
> 
> If anyone can answer these two questions, that would be most helpful.

Both lpr and file backends don't restrict the ps level when printing:

http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/tree/modules/printbackends/lpr/gtkprintbackendlpr.c#n203

http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/tree/modules/printbackends/file/gtkprintbackendfile.c#n315

And cairo uses CAIRO_PS_LEVEL_3 by default for ps surfaces. 

> Of course, those are my main questions.  I cannot help but be curious also
> however as to why and how I ended up with *LanguageLevel: "3" in my
> rfg-Laserjet3015.ppd file.  I am quite completely certain that *I* did
> not in any sense manufacture that file.  In addition to the language level,
> it contains quite a lot of stuff about available fonts, and so forth, and
> lots of other preinter-specific parameters.  I really would like to know
> how the values for all of those parameters were derived.  Did the install
> process for CUPS go and acually query my printer for all these things?
> And if it did, then why did it (apparently) get the Language Level wrong?

I have no idea.

> As I say, this is all most perplexing.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> rfg
-- 
Carlos Garcia Campos
PGP key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x523E6462

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