[Pkg-hpijs-devel] Bug#457721: hplip: doesn't honor /etc/papersize

[Luca Capello]

Hi Henrique!

On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:33:40 +0100, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Dec 2007, Luca Capello wrote:
>> On a plain etch system, with /etc/papersize set to a4, my hp Color
>> LaserJet CM1017 MFP [1] still defaults to letter, which is wrong.
>
> Paper size defaults are in the PPD.  One *could* machine-edit it to
> try to match /etc/papersize better, but AFAIK, it is the job of a
> print dialog to do this transparently (the PPD default matches the
> hardware default, usually).
>
> Once the paper size is set on the job options (through the PPD file,
> for example), it should be honoured properly by ghostscript and HPLIP.

Thank you for the explanation, now it's a bit more clear.

However, it seems that my configuration was messed up in some way and
I'm not anymore sure it's an hplip bug :-D

When I discovered the problem, I thought the cause was the PPD (i.e. HP
Color LaserJet Series PCL 6 CUPS).  Thus I played a bit with cups,
mostly from the command line, and I also renamed the printer.  It seems
that I forgot to rename the PDD as well (/etc/cups/pdd/), which resulted
in the printer been shown as "Local Raw Printer".  For this reason, I'd
say that cups is faulty here: it should honor /etc/papersize by default,
as it's the case on Mac OS X IIRC (where the papersize can be globally
set on System Preferences -> Hardware -> Print & Fax).

This is for the papersize problem.  However, there's another problem,
linked to the PPD for this particular printer.  Since I couldn't find
any specific PPD on OpenPrinting.org (the link for the custom PPD is
broken), I chose the generic PCL-6 provided with cups.  While with this
PPD I can print from Epiphany, I've problems with the cups test page
(which is printed on the top-right corner instead of full paper) or
Evince (a 1.2M PostScript file gives "insufficient memory" error on the
printer LCD).

Since I've access to a Mac OS X 10.3.9, I downloaded from the hp website
the Mac OS X drivers and then copied to my etch the PPD file (which is
the same as for the CM1015 MFP).  With this file and after I removed the
Mac-specific declarations, I can set the papersize to a4 (default is
still letter), the cups test page is correct and Evince can print the
12.M PostScript file.  The only problem is that even if on both hardware
and software printer settings the paper media is plain, the printer
still asks a manual confirmation on the LCD panel.

Now, about this bug, I would proceed in the following way: clone it and
reassigning the cloned one to cups (which should honor /etc/papersize by
default).  The original one should be reassigned to hpijs-ppds (because
it's hpijs that supports this printer models) and rename to something
like "please include a PPD file for hp Color LaserJet CM1015/CM1017
MFP".  I can provide the modified PPD I use, if necessary (but I'm not
sure about the license issue).

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca