On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 09:29:58 +0100 Mark Rogers mark@more-solutions.co.uk wrote:
The driver is "Samsung CLP-680 Series (PS)". [...] The only other option given for this specific model is "Samsung CLP-680 Series, driverless, cups-filters 1.27.4". Switching to that driver sped things up considerably - from print to completion in seconds, as I'd expect from Windows.
So that seems like a success to me, but why? I'd be very surprised if I ever picked anything other than defaults when setting up the printer.
Well, I can't be sure without dissecting your system but I suspect the "PS" indicates that the PDF is being converted to PostScript and then that sent to the printer. I can't remember what pdf2ps and similar likely converters do about things like drawings, images and fonts. Quite possibly some modest PDF files turn into really big PS ones, big enough to take a long time and overflow available memory.
I suspect the "driverless" option just sends the PDF to the printer and lets the printer decide what to do with it. https://www.cnet.com/products/samsung-clp-680nd-printer-color-laser-clp680nd... says that printer can handle versions of PCL, PDF and PostScript natively, as well as SPL-C(?). So probably now only the PDF is being sent over there and no spooling or conversion is happening on your computer, which is much faster. The main downside is that if you find a way to send it a JPEG not converted to PDF or similar, it may spew pages of gibberish until you hit the power switch or run out of paper (BTDTGTTS...).
The default suggestion is probably picked by a general rule, such as "any driver you downloaded, else the one with the longest list of accepted input formats". It may not be correct in every case, such as if your printer can handle several formats natively.
Oh and as I found some drivers on support.hp.com, I suspect you are right about it being a HP inside!
Hope that explains,