[Sussex] PDF file printing problem

[Steve Dobson]

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Hi Gavin

On 18/01/11 09:57, Gavin Stevens wrote:
> Happy New Year to everyone.
>
Long time no see.

> I have an annoying problem in that I can't get PDF files to print out.
> I have a Hewlett-Packard Laserjet 4000N & I'm running Debian Squeeze.
> The printer prints many other things with no problem.

I'm using an old, second-hand, but very reliable HP LaserJet 1200.  It
is plugged into Debian Lenny systems and handles PDFs not problem, and I
didn't do anything (that I recall) to configure it.

> It is connected to two computers via a data switch & is connected using
> the parallel port.

I have a simpler configuration.  The print is only plugged in via USB to
my home office server (Debian Lenny) and CUPS is used to share that
printer both with the workstation (Debian Squeezy) and netbook (also
Squeezy).

A quick Google search turned up this URL
   http://www.owlfish.com/thoughts/winipp-cups-2003-07-20.html
which details how to use CUPS's IPP protocol under windows.  I only
mention this as it might be better to host the printer on one system and
network share it.

> The second PC is a dual-boot Debian Squeeze/Windows XP & PDF files
> print out with no problem on Windows XP but will not print out on the
> Debian installation on the second machine either.
> 
> I am rather baffled as to why this is the case & any thoughts would be
> most welcome.

My guess is that the Debian printer configuration on the duel boot
system hasn't got all the software it needs. Gutenprint and Foomatic are
involved somehow sorting out file formats for printing.  I found under
Lenny that they just worked.  In the past I have just installed the HP
Linux Printing and Imaging System (package hplip) and everything has
worked.  But when I installed my home office server I just selected
"Print Server" from tasksel(8) and let it install the stuff it wanted.

Assuming that you haven't selected "Print Server" in tasksel(8) I would
suggest that you should first remove the printer installation.  Then run
"tasksel" (as root of course) to install all the printer software and
then add the printer again.

If you have installed all the "Print Server" software then it might be
just be the way you configured the printer in the first place.  I did it
using CUPS because CUPS had a web based admin app running on port 631 so
I could configure my printer remotely using a browser.  If you have the
printer attached to the local machine and CUPS is installed then
	http://localhost:631/admin

At some point it will prompt for a password.  You must use the username
"root" and you root password on the machine your connecting to.

In the hope that it helps here is some data from my setup.

CUPS reports my HP printer configured thus:
	Description:	Hewlett-Packard HP LaserJet 1200
	Location:	Home Office
	Printer Driver:	HP LaserJet 1200 Foomatic/ljet4
	Printer State:	idle, accepting jobs, published.
	Device URI:	hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1200?serial=00CNBF241411

And here is a list of the packages installed which include the term
"print" [any case] someone in the package name or the short description.

$ dpkg -l  | grep -i print | awk '{print $2}' | sort
cups
cups-bsd
cups-client
cups-common
cups-driver-gutenprint
foo2zjs
foomatic-db
foomatic-db-engine
foomatic-db-gutenprint
foomatic-db-hpijs
foomatic-filters
foomatic-filters-ppds
hal-cups-utils
hpijs
hplip
hplip-data
hp-ppd
ijsgutenprint
libcups2
libcupsimage2
libcupsys2
libgutenprint2
libxp6
openprinting-ppds
printconf
python-cupsutils
python-foomatic



Hope this is of some help
Steve
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