CUPS vs. other

[Colin JN Breame <c j n breame durham ac uk>]

	 Tue, 2004-03-16 at 10:54 -0600, Alex Roitman wrote:

> On 03/15/2004 11:51:08 PM, James Henstridge wrote:
> > On 16/03/2004 1:15 PM, Alex Roitman wrote:
> >> ...
> >> My problem is this: when I set up gnome-print config from default, I
> >> can only choose from the handful of sizes (Letter, Legal, Executive,
> >> A4, Monarch Envelope). No A0-A3, A5, B0-B6, etc. It seems that this
> >> is because my CUPS printing system only supports that handful of
> >> sizes.
> >> 
> >> Is there a way to initialize config to the Postscript backend so
> >> that more paper sizes are available to set in config?
> >>
> > Install the correct PPD file for your printer?  Unless I am mistaken,
> > CUPS generates the media-supported list from values in the PPD file.
> > If the print driver says that a queue only supports a certain
> > collection of sizes, why would you generate documents of a different
> > size?
> 
> What if I don't have any printing system installed? I still could use
> the generic postscript backend to produce PS for whatever size.
> However, the gnome-print config on the machine without CUPS
> is stuck with A4 and would not let me set the page size to anything
> else.
> 
> If I could switch the config to the PS backend somehow, I could choose
> between all the PS sizes. Is that possible? Maybe it should be a
> fallback when CUPS is not installed?
> 
> Alex
> 
> -- 
> Alexander Roitman   http://ebner.neuroscience.umn.edu/people/alex.html
> Dept. of Neuroscience, Lions Research Building
> 2001 6th Street SE, Minneapolis, MN  55455
> Tel (612) 625-7566   FAX (612) 626-9201

How does this fit in with the effort to make linux and others common?
Is there a free standard for printing that is widely acceptable?

Is (sorry for the pdf but,
http://ftp.freestandards.org/pub/openprinting/general/OP%20Working%20Group-fsg102-1.pdf) a moving target or an I being presumptuous?

Colin