[Printing-architecture] PostScript printers without PPD files?

Till Kamppeter till.kamppeter at gmail.com
Mon Jul 27 20:39:39 UTC 2020


On 27/07/2020 22:21, Michael Sweet wrote:
> PostScript is dead, long live PDF...
> 
> Seriously, PostScript (and PCL) are provided for legacy enterprise application support but PDF and Apple/PWG Raster/PCLm are the formats-de-jour of the current network printing standards, even for Microsoft now that they have gone whole-hog for Mopria-based "universal" printing.
> 

Great, so PostScript is retro-fit-only, I can simply add the filter 
function to libppd then.

> I think it makes sense to have a generic Level 2 PostScript printer PPD (as macOS has shipped for almost 20 years and as CUPS has had for almost as long) that covers the standard Letter/Legal/Tabloid, A4/A3, and Env10/EnvDL office printer sizes.  You could also have a generic Level 3 PPD (not that the current filters do all that much different for Level 3), and it is possible to query a PS printer for the list of supported paper sizes, color support, duplexer, etc. so that a PPD file can be generated in the absence of a product-specific PPD.

Yes, the "Generic PostScript Printer" PPDs from CUPS I had put into the 
PostScript Printer Application anyway. I am also planning to grab the 
code of CUPS' commandtops filter for querying PostScript printers for 
default settings (I had put a lot of love into this filter years ago to 
make it actually working, and made system-config-printer using it).

Is there already some free software code to query an arbitrary, non-IPP 
PostScript printer so that one can create a PPD for it?

    Till


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