On 2004-11-26 21:54:39 +0000 Ian bell ianbell@ukfsn.org wrote:
AFAICS most distros do not use plain ghostscript as it supports relatively few printer drivers.
ijs support is in my near-default build of ghostscript (I certainly didn't ask for it). You have to have the right ijs plug-in program installed and configured to use it, but I have no ijs printer to test with. Part of the point of ijs is that you don't have to recompile ghostscript to get new drivers (uniprint anyone?). You just install and configure a different ijs plugin.
The right options to ghostscript seem to be obtained from www.linuxprinting.org by viewing the driver page and using the "Show Execution Details" form. For hpijs installed and printing onto A4, they are things like (beware placeholders):
-sDEVICE=ijs -sIjsServer=hpijs -sDeviceManufacturer="HEWLETT-PACKARD" -sDeviceModel="<Model>" -dDEVICEWIDTHPOINTS=595 -dDEVICEHEIGHTPOINTS=842 -r<Quality> -sIjsParams=Quality:<Quality> -dIjsUseOutputFD
Long and ugly, but general I suppose and you only set it up once.
It used to be "not much fun" to compile recent gimp-print drivers into ghostscript, but that's now available as an ijs plug-in too. CUPS is the system which has given me trouble. Most directions seem to be "feed it this ppd file and never mind why" which is no help when trying to get a new printer working perfectly.