[Foomatic] foomatic-rip, a2ps, and 11x17 (or media=foo)

David Bishop tech at gnuconsulting.com
Fri May 7 15:08:25 PDT 2004


I recently switched our print-server from using texttops to foomatic-rip for 
plain-text files (/etc/cups/mime.convs), because I like a2ps a lot better than 
texttops (it doesn't cut off letters on the left-hand side of the page, for one 
thing).  Things work great for normal letter-sized prints.  However, when 
trying to print something in 11x17, a2ps just takes a dump.  Parsing through 
the debug log, it appears that foomatic-rip passes the argument media=11x17 on 
through to a2ps as medium=11x17, which a2ps doesn't understand.  It needs it to 
be medium=Tabloid (don't ask me why!).   
 
Now, as foomatic-rip is obviously recognizing what the media= option does, and 
translates that to medium=, it should be easy enough to also intercept the 
11x17 and convert it too.  Well, easy for someone better at perl than I am, 
apparently.  I tracked it down to the if block that starts at about line 1712, 
but past that I'm lost.  Or, it could be around line 3781, where it sets the 
@@PAGESIZE@@ variable (maybe).   
 
Either way, if you could take a look at this and let me know how to fix this 
(either by modifying foomatic-rip, or something else - I'm flexible) that would 
be awesome.  Thanks for a great program, it has helped simplify our printing 
tasks around here *tons*. 
 
D.A.Bishop 



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