[LINK] Linux printer installation not for newbies

Robin Whittle rw at firstpr.com.au
Thu Sep 21 14:16:36 AEST 2006


There are still various gotchas:

>From Thunderbird 1.0.2, using the first printer device on the list
(HL-5250DN@:64) fixed width text is printed in proportional spacing.
Spaces in the Subject, From etc. lines and in the header and footer are
collapsed and there is no date/time in the footer.  But at least it is
with an A4 paper size.

Using the next two printer devices (xp_ps_spooldir_HOME_Xprintjobs@:64
and similar xp_pdf_....) produced no results.

The bottom option is "Postscript/HL-5250DN".  This prints the email
properly, but as if it was on Letter paper, with no date in the footer
and with the start of the subject line in the header truncated.

It is possible to set the printer options for "Postscript/HL-5250DN" in
a way which seems to persist between multiple invocations of
Thunderbird, and I think the same is true, separately, of Mozilla.  By
setting the options:

  A4, GreyScale, Margins all 0.2"

I could get a decent printout with the "Postscript/HL-5250DN" option.
Best to leave the margins small (0.04") for the "HL-5250DN@:64" option.
 The A4 and margin settings did not survive a reboot.

Having said that, neither option properly printed the "modifications for
. . " heading at http://www.firstpr.com.au/.  "HL-5250DN@:64" used Times
and "Postscript/HL-5250DN" missed out on the italics.

Setting GreyScale instead of Color for both these options seems to speed
up printing.  I found "HL-5250DN@:64" very slow, at 1200DPI, in color
for graphic images from Mozilla.

Gimp presented only one printer option, and once I set it for Greyscale
and A4, it worked fine.  However, for me, the A4 setting didn't survive
a reboot.


Printing is complex and these things have grown over the decades into
quite a mess.  I think the management of sound, sound cards etc. in
Windows and probably Linux is also really messy.  I have given up trying
to understand when sound will play or not on my Win2k laptop.

 - Robin



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