bad surprise using ghostview (gv)
Bernard
I have quite often used 'gv' (ghostview) up to about a year and a half
ago or so. I displayed ps files with it, and then printed them. To be
more precise, the ps files were ancestry charts generated by a genealogy
software called 'lifelines'. Everything went OK at that time.
But this no longer works well. 'gv' still displays those charts allright
on the screen, but, if I print them, they come out Black and White with
a mediocre printing quality.
A year and a half ago, when everything printed OK, I was running Debian
Sarge. Since then I have installed Lenny (a new install, not just an
upgrade). My printer is the same : DeskJet-1120C ; it still works OK
with other apps and still prints color when using OO.org or the GIMP.
The man pages of 'gv' don't mention anything particular about printing.
To display lifelines generated ps files, I just type:
gv myfile.ps
and the file does display nicely with its colors.
Then I click onto the box 'FILE' and 'Print Document', which is exactly
what I used to do before. Then a dialog box comes in, proposing to write
a print command, which starts with 'lpr'. I then add '-PDeskJet-1120C'
to the already displayed 'lpr', which gives: lpr -PDeskJet-1120C.
If, discarding the use of 'gv', I just print the ps file directly as
follows:
lpr -PDeskJet-1120C myfile.ps
I get exactly the same printing result (poor quality, black and white)
The man pages of 'lpr' make mention of a '-o' argument that - if I
caught it well - should allow to precise details, but no more is said
about this. In any case, as previously said, I used to be able to
directly print with colours using 'gv'.
The printer is being reckognised allright, and, if I make a spelling
mistake, for instance if I write 'deskJet-1120C' or 'DeskJet_1120C', I
get error messages saying that the printer is not found. In the other
hand, if I write nothing in front of 'lpr', it still prints, with the
same poor quality as if using the proper printer name.
Would I be missing a GV or GS related library, or is there a know
problem or bug with newer versions of gv/gs (well, I mean newer than in
Sarge time)
Thanks in advance for your help.
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Gilbert Sullivan
...snip...
> If, discarding the use of 'gv', I just print the ps file directly as
> follows:
>
> lpr -PDeskJet-1120C myfile.ps
>
> I get exactly the same printing result (poor quality, black and white)
...snip...
If I'm understanding correctly what you've written, it seems to me that
your problem may not be ghostview. I think you might want to try
specifying different drivers for your printer to see if others might
work better.
You might also want to provide a bit of information about your system.
I run Debian testing on all of my systems, and I recently had to switch
from hpijs drivers to CUPS+Gutenprint on all of my HP LaserJet printers
for a similar problem. (They weren't dithering or shading properly, but
simly printing black & white.)
-Gilbert
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Roger Leigh
> On 02/12/2011 08:59 AM, Bernard wrote:
>
> ...snip...
> >If, discarding the use of 'gv', I just print the ps file directly as
> >follows:
> >
> >lpr -PDeskJet-1120C myfile.ps
> >
> >I get exactly the same printing result (poor quality, black and white)
> ...snip...
>
> If I'm understanding correctly what you've written, it seems to me
> that your problem may not be ghostview. I think you might want to
> try specifying different drivers for your printer to see if others
> might work better.
>
> You might also want to provide a bit of information about your system.
>
> I run Debian testing on all of my systems, and I recently had to
> switch from hpijs drivers to CUPS+Gutenprint on all of my HP
> LaserJet printers for a similar problem. (They weren't dithering or
> shading properly, but simly printing black & white.)
Note that while Gutenprint has excellent support for Epson, Canon
and other colour inkjects, PCL-based HP deskjets are (AFAICT) only
supported in black and white. Good for monochrome lasers where
the fine dithering can greatly improve quality, but not so good for
inkjets, so if this is the case, you might wasnt to look at hplip
instead.
There currently isn't a maintainer for the PCL driver to add
colour support. If someone took the time, it would probably add
significant quality improvement over hplip/hpijs, since it would
make use of the more advanced dithering and colour handling of
gutenprint.
Regards,
Roger
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.''`. Roger Leigh
: :' : Debian GNU/Linux http://people.debian.org/~rleigh/
`. `' Printing on GNU/Linux? http://gutenprint.sourceforge.net/
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Gilbert Sullivan
> On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 09:32:42AM -0500, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>> On 02/12/2011 08:59 AM, Bernard wrote:
>>
>> ...snip...
>>> If, discarding the use of 'gv', I just print the ps file directly as
>>> follows:
>>>
>>> lpr -PDeskJet-1120C myfile.ps
>>>
>>> I get exactly the same printing result (poor quality, black and white)
>> ...snip...
>>
>> If I'm understanding correctly what you've written, it seems to me
>> that your problem may not be ghostview. I think you might want to
>> try specifying different drivers for your printer to see if others
>> might work better.
>>
>> You might also want to provide a bit of information about your system.
>>
>> I run Debian testing on all of my systems, and I recently had to
>> switch from hpijs drivers to CUPS+Gutenprint on all of my HP
>> LaserJet printers for a similar problem. (They weren't dithering or
>
> Note that while Gutenprint has excellent support for Epson, Canon
> and other colour inkjects, PCL-based HP deskjets are (AFAICT) only
> supported in black and white. Good for monochrome lasers where
> the fine dithering can greatly improve quality, but not so good for
> inkjets, so if this is the case, you might wasnt to look at hplip
> instead.
>
> There currently isn't a maintainer for the PCL driver to add
> colour support. If someone took the time, it would probably add
> significant quality improvement over hplip/hpijs, since it would
> make use of the more advanced dithering and colour handling of
> gutenprint.
>
>
> Regards,
> Roger
>
Thank you very, very much for this information. It fits with what I've
seen. And I'm just in the process of adding a couple of inkjet-based HP
MFPs to the mix here, so this is very very timely bit of data for me.
Regards,
Gilbert
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Bernard
> On 02/12/2011 08:59 AM, Bernard wrote:
>
> ...snip...
>> If, discarding the use of 'gv', I just print the ps file directly as
>> follows:
>>
>> lpr -PDeskJet-1120C myfile.ps
>>
>> I get exactly the same printing result (poor quality, black and white)
> ...snip...
>
> If I'm understanding correctly what you've written, it seems to me
> that your problem may not be ghostview. I think you might want to try
> specifying different drivers for your printer to see if others might
> work better.
>
> You might also want to provide a bit of information about your system.
the only printer defined in cups. On http://localhost:631, it says:
HP DeskJet 1120 C - CUPS + Gutenprint v5.0.2
URL parallel:/dev/lp0
General default media size A4
Color Model RGB Color
The CUPS test page prints OK with due colors
In my older system (Debian Sarge), I also had cups, but I wonder if
hpijs was not installed too. In here, it was not installed, but I just
did installed it, with no difference in the end printing result. A 'man
hpijs' says:
'Ghostscript will run it if the ijs server parameter is set to
'IjsServer=hpijs' when invoking the IJS driver'.
But I don't know how to go about to carry that test, since a 'man
ghostscript' does not explain how invoke it the right way ; 'gs
-sDEVICE=IJS myfile.ps' sends an error saying that device IJS is not found
>
> I run Debian testing on all of my systems, and I recently had to
> switch from hpijs drivers to CUPS+Gutenprint on all of my HP LaserJet
> printers for a similar problem. (They weren't dithering or shading
> properly, but simly printing black & white.)
Here it seems to be the opposite: CUPS with Gutenprint gives poor black
and white prints, and I am trying to test hpijs... to no avail so far
>
> -Gilbert
>
>
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Bernard
> On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 09:32:42AM -0500, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>
>> On 02/12/2011 08:59 AM, Bernard wrote:
>>
>> ...snip...
>>
>>> If, discarding the use of 'gv', I just print the ps file directly as
>>> follows:
>>>
>>> lpr -PDeskJet-1120C myfile.ps
>>>
>>> I get exactly the same printing result (poor quality, black and white)
>>>
>> ...snip...
>>
>> If I'm understanding correctly what you've written, it seems to me
>> that your problem may not be ghostview. I think you might want to
>> try specifying different drivers for your printer to see if others
>> might work better.
>>
>> You might also want to provide a bit of information about your system.
>>
>> I run Debian testing on all of my systems, and I recently had to
>> switch from hpijs drivers to CUPS+Gutenprint on all of my HP
>> LaserJet printers for a similar problem. (They weren't dithering or
>> shading properly, but simly printing black & white.)
>>
>
> Note that while Gutenprint has excellent support for Epson, Canon
> and other colour inkjects, PCL-based HP deskjets are (AFAICT) only
> supported in black and white. Good for monochrome lasers where
> the fine dithering can greatly improve quality, but not so good for
> inkjets, so if this is the case, you might wasnt to look at hplip
> instead.
>
CUPS+GUTENPRINT does work with my DeskJet-1120C, it provides good
quality color printing from OpenOffice as well as from the GIMP, only
from GhostView does it print B/W with low quality
>
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Roger Leigh
Hmm, I do see that a number of HP Colour Deskjets are now listed,
so you may well be correct. Historically, this was a problem;
maybe that's fixed or partially fixed now.
gv is just using lpr/lp to print. So, if for example you print the
file directly with "lpr -P printer $file.ps", is it still monochrome?
This will eliminate gs, in case it's causing the problem.
When you print from the GIMP, are you using the regular Print
dialogue, or are you using the "Print with Gutenprint" dialogue
(gimp-gutenprint)? The former prints via the normal printing
system (as if you did it with lpr), and sends either the pixmap
or the pixmap embedded in PostScript to the print queue. The
Gutenprint dialogue does all the rendering inside GIMP and sends
raw printer commands to the queue (lpr -o raw). If the printer
is misconfigured in CUPS, that could explain why it works from
the GIMP. It doesn't explain OpenOffice though.
Bernard
Now ? But, as explained in my original post, the same CUPS config did
allow good quality color printing of ps files using 'gv' (GhostView), as
well as OpenOffice and the GIMP, before I replace Debian Sarge by Lenny,
that is, in the date range 2006-2009.
> gv is just using lpr/lp to print. So, if for example you print the
> file directly with "lpr -P printer $file.ps", is it still monochrome?
>
Yes it is.
> This will eliminate gs, in case it's causing the problem.
>
> When you print from the GIMP, are you using the regular Print
> dialogue, or are you using the "Print with Gutenprint" dialogue
> (gimp-gutenprint)?
With the GIMP, I am using the regular print dialogue... and it prints
nicely with colors. It still does, for I have carried some more tests,
so as to eliminate problems that could have arisen since.
> The former prints via the normal printing
> system (as if you did it with lpr), and sends either the pixmap
> or the pixmap embedded in PostScript to the print queue. The
> Gutenprint dialogue does all the rendering inside GIMP and sends
> raw printer commands to the queue (lpr -o raw). If the printer
> is misconfigured in CUPS, that could explain why it works from
> the GIMP. It doesn't explain OpenOffice though.
>
Please see - in my more recent post - the results of my tests with CUPS.
The test page from CUPS prints nicely with due colors.
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Bernard
carried a few more tests :
Bernard wrote:
> Roger Leigh wrote:
>> On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 12:28:22AM +0100, Bernard wrote:
>>
>>> Roger Leigh wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 09:32:42AM -0500, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 02/12/2011 08:59 AM, Bernard wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> ...snip...
>>>>>
>>> But then I fail to understand: as explained in my original post,
>>> CUPS+GUTENPRINT does work with my DeskJet-1120C, it provides good
>>> quality color printing from OpenOffice as well as from the GIMP,
>>> only from GhostView does it print B/W with low quality
>>>
>>
>> Hmm, I do see that a number of HP Colour Deskjets are now listed,
>> so you may well be correct. Historically, this was a problem;
>> maybe that's fixed or partially fixed now.
>>
>
> Now ? But, as explained in my original post, the same CUPS config did
> allow good quality color printing of ps files using 'gv' (GhostView),
> as well as OpenOffice and the GIMP, BEFORE I replace Debian Sarge by
> Lenny, that is, in the date range 2006-2009.
>> gv is just using lpr/lp to print. So, if for example you print the
>> file directly with "lpr -P printer $file.ps", is it still monochrome?
>>
>
> Yes it is.
>> This will eliminate gs, in case it's causing the problem.
>>
>> When you print from the GIMP, are you using the regular Print
>> dialogue, or are you using the "Print with Gutenprint" dialogue
>> (gimp-gutenprint)?
> With the GIMP, I am using the regular print dialogue... and it prints
> nicely with colors. It still does, for I have carried some more tests,
> so as to eliminate problems that could have arisen since.
A precision here. In the line above, I meant using the GIMP for the
purpose of printing images such as jpg or tif files. So far I had never
tried to import postscript files into the GIMP, not even knowing if it
was possible. So, I have just tested it. My ps files do import all right
into the GIMP, and, from the GIMP, they do print with colors (no color
if printing with 'gv' or just using lpr directly). However, with the
GIMP, the quality is rather poor, except if I opt for strong dithering
during import. I also just tested the import of my ps file into
OpenOffice. It does import it into OpenOffice_draw, and, from there, it
prints with color and good quality.
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