New printer prints blank pages

[Brian K. White]

On 5/18/2017 2:11 PM, scooter6--- via Filepro-list wrote:
> Well - I got the new printer today - the L2740 and it was plug and play -
> which is great because I really didn't have time to do any of these type
> shenanigans for what will be a fairly lightly used printer....on to bigger
> and better things now
> thanks to all that replied.....
> Scott
> PDM

Amid all the full wide ranging discussion, I think maybe the final 
result might not have stood out as it should:

"all these shenanigans" is just:
* install ghostpdl
* insert pcl6 into the printer config in filepro

However, the details, on suse, I have a nice ghostpdl package I made 
myself that includes convenience scripts (one script really that does 
all) pcl2pc, pcl2fax, pcl2pdf, xps2*... scripts, so in that case the 
steps are really simple.
zypper in ghostpdl
make a printer config that just says
pcl2ps |lpr -d myprinter.


But I see now that there is no similarly nice ghostpdl package in the 
normal centos repos. There IS an rpm in a CERN Forensics repo, but that 
package only supplies a pcl6 binary, not the convenience scripts.
https://centos.pkgs.org/7/forensics-x86_64/ghostpdl-9.18-1.el7.x86_64.rpm.html

You could do that, and just put a pcl6 command in the printer config 
instead of the wrapper script. it's just a longer command full of 
options you have to figure out once, but it's essentially the same as above.

But that binary is not the most current, and if you are going to use the 
pcl6 binary directly, then you can get the most current version directly 
from Artifex's github, so you might as well use that instead of 
installing another repo etc.

So, the total recipe, which makes no assumptions about packaging, just 
get a binary and use it, is just this:

Get the binary:
# wget 
https://github.com/ArtifexSoftware/ghostpdl-downloads/releases/download/gs921/ghostpcl-9.21-linux-x86_64.tgz
# tar -xvf ghostpcl-9.21-linux-x86_64.tgz
# cp -f ghostpcl-9.21-linux-x86_64/gpcl6-921-linux-x86_64 
/usr/local/bin/pcl6

Edit a printer destination in filepro like this
Where you currently have something like this:
lpr -d myprinter -o raw

Change it to this:
pcl6 -dQUIET -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=ps2write -sOutputFile=- 
- |lpr -d myprinter

(all one line, the two - - after OutputFile are not together, "-o raw" 
is dropped from the original lpr commandline on purpose)

-- 
bkw



>
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:48 PM, Bill Campbell via Filepro-list <
> filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, May 17, 2017, Bob Rasmussen via Filepro-list wrote:
>>> See bottom post.
>>>
>> ...
>>>> But, it's not really true to say "linux can print to this printer but
>>>> filepro can't?" No. filepro can actually print to a pcl6 or gdi printer
>>>> exactly as well as any other linux application, because none of them
>>>> prints to those printers either. They are all printing PS or PDF or
>> plain
>>>> text, and cups is converting on the fly. It could do exactly the same
>> for
>>>> PCL and it wouldn't be any different.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> bkw
>>>
>>> Brian, I think you're saying filepro PCL printing on Linux could be MADE
>> to
>>> work, theoretically, NOT that it DOES work. Am I right? If so, let me
>> point
>>> out that writing a PCL to PS (or to PDF) translator is a very large
>>> undertaking.
>>
>> It's fairly easy using ghostpdl.  I've used that to go from my
>> generic print codes to PDF for printing easily to Macs where they
>> really like PDF files.  My accounting software generates output
>> with generic codes I've designed when go through a filter to
>> conver to PCL then send that to pcl6.
>>
>> Bill
>> --
>> INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
>> URL: http://www.celestial.com/  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
>> Voice:          (206) 236-1676  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820
>> Fax:            (206) 232-9186  Skype: jwccsllc (206) 855-5792
>>
>> Your true dull minds are generally preferred for public employ...
>>   -- Washington Irving
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