Can't print through GIMP

Lucretia · n00b Joined: 15 Oct 2002 Posts: 69

Hi,

I have followed the Gentoo Printing Doc and I can print using Acrobat Reader, using "cat > /dev/usb/lp0" and through gedit (so far).

My printer looks like this in the CUPS admin screen:

ipfoot · n00b Joined: 20 Aug 2003 Posts: 6

I'm having exactly the same problem. The postscript that gimp-print-4.3.18 is generating just causes ghostscript to display or print a blank page. Is there any known fix for this?

ipfoot · n00b Joined: 20 Aug 2003 Posts: 6

On further investigation, kghostview will display postscript produced by gimp-print-4.3.18 BUT ONLY IF PAGESIZE IS SET TO AUTO.

If the page size in kghostview is set to A4, Letter etc, then just a blank page is displayed. I think that gimp-print is producing invalid postscript and/or postscript that is incompatible with ghostscript, and this is why gimp is not printing.

Are other people having this problem with gimp-print-4.3.18? I would be very grateful for a solution.

Ian
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VXO · n00b Joined: 28 Apr 2003 Posts: 12

I'm having the same problem; just discovered it this evening (rawr! annoying!).

GIMP 1.2.5, gimp-print 4.3.19... this combination produces curious results; saving the print job to a .ps file and catting it straight to /dev/lp0 renders the lower 1/2 inch of the page to the top of the first page on my HP Deskjet 1600CM, then shoots it out otherwise blank. CUPS is version 1.1.19-r1, but I've completely bypassed it and had the same results both with Ghostscript AND the printer's internal PostScript interpreter. The Postscript data coming from gimp-print is just not working.

Opening that same image with gs, it shows that same thing.. just the last 1/2 inch, top of the screen.

kghostview displays it fine, for reasons unknown.

For now, I'm opening the .ps file in kghostview and re-printing it... there must be a better way, right?

ipfoot · n00b Joined: 20 Aug 2003 Posts: 6

According to gimp-print.sourceforge.net, the latest stable version is 4.2.5. However, Gentoo is using the unstable 4.3.x branch. 4.3.18 and 4.3.19 DO NOT PRODUCE WORKABLE POSTSCRIPT. I'd suggest using the stable 4.2.5-r2.ebuild version instead.

Ian
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orick · n00b Joined: 08 May 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Chile

Well, I also had quite a many problems since the update to gimp-print 4.3.18, which is quite different than the former versions.

I managed somehow to get printing working again, but that broke after updating to 4.3.19, because there has been a substantial change respect to 4.3.18.

I could get this working again, more or less, following the instructions in the gentoo printing howto.

However, printing a .pdf with an image through KGhostview prints the postscript source (in text, a lot of pages).

So, again, a lot of investigating the forums, the web, etc, until printing will be really working again.

I must say that I do (also) use the computer for "normal" work, not only to learn how to (re)configure it.

I hope it is not too much to ask the maintainer(s) of the printing packages to maintain a certain stability through the versions, or if changes are to be made to keep printing going, to document them, for example in the gentoo newsletter, and advise about the consequences of the update.
_________________
Olivier

orick · n00b Joined: 08 May 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Chile

Ok, I got the printing right again and this is how it works for me with and a Epson Stylus Color 640 printer. I'm using KDE.

You have reconfigure all from the beginning.

I assume that you have your gentoo system up to date, that is, latest gimp-print 4.3.19, ghostscript and cups.

Proceed according to the gentoo printing howto, bearing in mind that now the printer id's are "human readable" and not any more just numbers.
I my case, the printer was included in the gimp-print-ijs.xml driver. There are also other foomatic drivers, but I did not try them.
Go on using foomatic-configure, as the howto describes.
There is an important point to solve at that moment: Give a meaningful NAME to your printerdriver (the -n option) which is unique in the sense that you did not give any former printer driver that NAME. It'll be placed in /etc/cups/ppd.
This NAME will accompain you all the way trough:
As the howto states, configure cups with http://localhost:631, giving the printer the same NAME.
In order that Kghostview prints images, choose the option printout mode->Image type->continuous tone photographs. In printout mode you may also set some othet defaults. Paper size is for me US-letter.

Ok, nearly ready, try it out. Delete the other printer def's in kprinter, you will not need them any more.

OpenOffice: Oh, yes. You maybe will have to do some trial and error. During the import, you will notice that OO does NOT display in browsing /etc/cups/ppd the NAME.ppd but another name, taken, it seems, from the content of NAME.ppd. If you didn't delete the older ppd's from /etc/cups/ppd, you even may see only one name, even if there are more ppd's. Ok, you import anyway. Now you may find in the dropdown list more than one driver of exactly the same name, which even can be all of your older drivers. You may didn't even get the new one in, keep this in mind. Now finish adding the new printer with one of them, and remember which it was in the list (first, second, etc).
Look at what you got: if in the line "Driver:" (which can't be changed) something appears like
lpr -P NAME.ppd
you're fine, that's your new printer.

If not, start again with the other ones of the list. Remember well which ones refer to a former printer you configured before the update. Got through and your new one did not appear? Then the import failed as mentioned before. Delete from that OO list all the duplicates exept the one in which the lpr -p xxx.ppd has not been configured before by you, because that one is the original OO. Now import again, as described before and try again. Your new driver should now appear. Try it out not only with the test page, but also with a multi page document. It happend to me that the test page printed out fine but not a multi page doc. That put me on the trail of the import problem mentioned before.

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Olivier

potsdamlemur · Posted: Sun Oct 19, 2003 3:58 pm Post subject: Bug filed

I'm having the same frustrating time, and filed bug #31513 about it: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=31513. (I should have mentioned, Eye of Gnome isn't any help either).

I'm giving up on trying to get it to work. I've wasted enough time on a beautiful Sunday autumn morning trying to get this fixed or even diagnosed.

I'll just reboot with a Knoppix CD and try with that.

potsdamlemur · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 4:18 pm Post subject:

Well, Knoppix worked, though that may be because its KDE image viewing/printing apps worked (didn't try gimp).

It may also be because while rebooting the computer I also power-cycled the printer --- I recall that this move solved a frustrating printing problem a month or two ago. Haven't had a chance to try gimp and gimp-print under Gentoo again, but when I do I'll cycle the printer power as part of the testing.