[CDBUG-talk] lpd+foomatic-filters+.ppd files

Dave Del Debbio ddeldebb at gmail.com
Sat Jan 12 21:16:28 EST 2008


Another thing I did this week that might be of interest is that I 
installed a networked printer using lpd.  I knew lpd has the -J 
parameter to pass options:

http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/Database/LPDDocumentation

(towards bottom of page)...

In my case, I wanted duplex printing.  I couldn't get it to work with 
lpd -J.  I went with CUPS, and since that was what HP required.  I 
re-visited the issue when CUPS didn't work with gvim (solution is to 
pass lp instead of lpr as a printoptions parameter).

What made everything work is editing the printer's .ppd file.  In my 
case I changed "DefaultHPOption_Duplexer: False" to 
"DefaultHPOption_Duplexer: True".  I didn't know you could edit the 
manufacturer's .ppd file (downloaded from openprinting.org) and 
foomatic-rip would pass this option to a remote printer.

I think this is great.  You get the low overhead of LPD and all the 
functionality the printer offers with .ppd files.




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