Printer Dialogs

Malcolm_Moore · April 5, 2012, 1:56pm

I wonder if I could revisit this issue again.

I have been experimenting a bit more and
LibreOffice doesn't show all the options
the printer has available.

For example:- ( With LO 3.5.n and openSuse 12.1)
In the system printer dialog my Ricoh MPC 5000
has 4 trays and a bypass. In LO it only show the 4 trays

Also it has paper types of Thick, Thick2 and Thick3 for
different weights of paper. The LO dialog only has Thick
which is a bit of a problem as some types of iron on
paper we use has to go through the printer at Thick 2 or
Thick 3

If I use something like Gimp or Chrome and print a page it shows all
the options ( 21 types of paper and 5 trays ) LO only shows
13 types of paper and 4 trays.

Where is LO getting it's information from and why is it wrong
on some printers? ( our old HP 4250's are correct but they are
pretty simple souls at the best of times ) Also, is there some
way to tell LO to get it's information from the system?

Many thanks

Mal

krackedpress · April 5, 2012, 2:39pm

When things like that happen, I Export to PDF and then use the default PDF viewer to print the document.

I use 3.4.5 with Ubuntu 64-bit.

Do you have the Printer Administration listed in you menu of LO module list? I find that there are a lot more options listed there for my printers, than in the print menus.

Each printer I have, HP PSC-1410 inkjet, Epson Artisan 810 inkjet, HP Color Laserjet 2600n, and the HP Laserjet 2300dn, seem to have different print options than I get with printing via the "default Viewer" using the Export to PDF document instead of the printing via Writer directly.

LO will not get my Epson Artisan 810 inkjet printer to duplex, but it will for my b/w HP 2300 workgroup printer. I have not used the HP 2300dn for even a week, since it came on Monday, so I have not tested all the differences, BUT it really seems that LO does not work with all the printer's options like it should.

Then there is the fact that if you print a document with the option of more than 1 copies, LO prints out each copy as its own job, while the "default Viewer" will print the copies as copies and not as separate jobs. LO takes 20-30 seconds for each job to process on the printer, while the PDF processes one job and each copy comes out as soon as the previous one lands in the output tray.

cornouws · April 11, 2012, 9:10pm

Hi Malcolm,

Malcolm Moore wrote (05-04-12 15:59)

I have been experimenting a bit more and
LibreOffice doesn't show all the options
the printer has available.

For example:- ( With LO 3.5.n and openSuse 12.1)
In the system printer dialog my Ricoh MPC 5000
has 4 trays and a bypass. In LO it only show the 4 trays

Where in LibreOffice do you get this?

Regards,

Tom_Davies · April 12, 2012, 5:00pm

Hi
Did the list manage to solve this problem? Has a bug-report been filed? Is it a long running and well known issue?
Regards from
Tom

mal1 · April 12, 2012, 6:08pm

I just go to print a document.
File / Print
General /Properties
The paper tray drop down does not include the bypass tray
Also if you go to Device to select the paper in the options
there are only 13 paper types listed. This printer has 21 types
( which show up in other applications )

Is that what you meant ?

best wishes

Mal

mal1 · April 12, 2012, 6:12pm

No, no help from the lists I'm afraid. I entered it as a bug 48514

It's a bit of a pain as all our big printers are Ricoh. Every other application
get's right There has to be some way to tell LO - It must be getting it's
information from the system somehow. LO can't possible have a database
of every printer out there. Why does it get it wrong ? ! grrr

best wishes

Mal

Hi
Did the list manage to solve this problem? Has a bug-report been filed? Is it a long running and well known issue?
Regards from
Tom

From: Malcolm Moore<st-malcolm.moore@whsg.info>
Subject: [libreoffice-users] Printer Dialogs
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Date: Thursday, 5 April, 2012, 14:59

I wonder if I could revisit this issue again.

I have been experimenting a bit more and
LibreOffice doesn't show all the options
the printer has available.

For example:- ( With LO 3.5.n and openSuse 12.1)
In the system printer dialog my Ricoh MPC 5000
has 4 trays and a bypass. In LO it only show the 4 trays

Also it has paper types of Thick, Thick2 and Thick3 for
different weights of paper. The LO dialog only has Thick
which is a bit of a problem as some types of iron on
paper we use has to go through the printer at Thick 2 or
Thick 3

If I use something like Gimp or Chrome and print a page it shows all
the options ( 21 types of paper and 5 trays ) LO only shows
13 types of paper and 4 trays.

Where is LO getting it's information from and why is it wrong
on some printers? ( our old HP 4250's are correct but they are
pretty simple souls at the best of times ) Also, is there some
way to tell LO to get it's information from the system?

Many thanks

Mal

No

cornouws · April 15, 2012, 6:42pm

mal wrote (12-04-12 20:05)

Where in LibreOffice do you get this?

I just go to print a document.
File / Print
General /Properties
The paper tray drop down does not include the bypass tray
Also if you go to Device to select the paper in the options
there are only 13 paper types listed. This printer has 21 types
( which show up in other applications )

Is that what you meant ?

Yes, thanks. (it could have been that you referred to information on the page style, although that is not so logic.)

I guess LibreOffice gets its information via the printer driver. And for me that's a terra incognita.
Could it be that the bypass is automatically selected once you open it, or fill it?
I think that the paper types are not relevant here. That are sort of definitions, referring in the end simply to the existing trays.

Regards,

Tom_Davies · April 15, 2012, 6:45pm

Hi
Is contacting Cups likely to be a good idea?
http://www.cups.org/newsgroups.php
Ricoh works fine at my place but we only use 2 trays and i haven't tried out anything other than the most basic options.
Regards from
Tom

cornouws · April 15, 2012, 6:45pm

mal wrote (12-04-12 19:58)

No, no help from the lists I'm afraid. I entered it as a bug 48514

Thanks for the issue.
Since it's on a Linux distro, there might be a difference between what printer drivers do there and what on a Windows system.

Others on the list with printers and a lot of tray's ?

mal1 · April 16, 2012, 6:54pm

Since we lease the printers I have spoken to both the engineers and the training department as I was
hoping they could be set that way but these printers needs to be told to use the bypass - it doesn't
select it automatically ( like small HP printers which if you put something in the bypass it will take it
from there preferentially. )

The paper types don't just refer to the tray to take the paper from. They also tell the printer how fast
to feed the paper through the machine. For example thick3 is used for t-shirt printing paper and that
has to go through really slowly otherwise the toner doesn't stick.

We have a really nasty work around for the t-shirt paper. That is, we put it in tray 3 and set that tray to
thick1 ( which LO does show ) which slows the paper a bit. Then we also select 1200 dpi instead of
the normal 600 which slows it even more and it works. However this does use up a tray and you can
also only get away which doing 2 or 3 pages then you have to put a blank sheet through from a normal
tray to clean the rollers.

best wishes

M

Malcolm_Moore · April 19, 2012, 7:08am

Incidentally ( or not ) LO gets it right in Windows

M

Walther_Koehler · April 19, 2012, 8:02am

Hallo,

I didnt follow the thread up to now.
Do you use GNULinux CUPS?

no: drop the rest
yes: In that case its probably a problem of the .ppd and could be solved by
modifying this filet or getting a better one from turboprint.com or a
gutenprint driver will do it. Have you switched off CUPS?
in my case I could (troubles with a Brother) I could solve the probelm
perfectly.

Walther

Malcolm_Moore · April 19, 2012, 12:49pm

Hi,

The driver came from http://www.openprinting.org/
They claim this printer works 100% and only LO has
this problem. All the other apps I have get it right and
show all the trays and paper options.

I had a look at turboprint and they don't seem to support
Ricoh printers.

M

krackedpress · April 19, 2012, 2:25pm

I use CUPS-PDF for non-LO PDF printing. Most of my printers have CUPS based drivers installed as their Linux default.

As for dialogs working properly, well duplexing works on an HP laser, while it will not on an Epson inkjet, within LO.

I use Linux mostly, but I have to compared side by side the dialogs between my Linux desktop and my Vista Laptop.

It could be LO, or it could be your flavor of Linux and its repository drivers. You never know unless you take the same printers with different version of Linux on the same computer. Or take LO on Linux vs LO on Windows. If it works for one system and not the other, then it is not LO. If the same issue is across OSs, then it is LO.

cornouws · April 19, 2012, 7:19pm

Malcolm Moore wrote (19-04-12 09:12)

Incidentally ( or not ) LO gets it right in Windows

Looks as what I suggested: a driver problem.
Printing from Ubuntu to the Epson etc etc here, gives quite a 'different experience' from that when printing form Windows.

krackedpress · April 19, 2012, 8:50pm

I get no duplexing - even when it is asked for - with the Epson Artisan 810 inkjet, but will get it with the HP Laserjet 2300 dn.

The default PDF reader will print duplex to the Epson, but it shows a different Printer Panel design.

Is there any way to use the "default" Ubuntu Printer Panel options instead of LO's panel?

90% of the Windows software I have used in the past 10 years use the same Printer Panel and options that seems to be the system default one.

Any reason why LO uses a different panel style?

Malcolm_Moore · April 20, 2012, 5:49am

I don't understand why you say it's a driver problem when
every other application gets it right only LO misses stuff.

best wishes

M

cornouws · April 20, 2012, 7:30am

Malcolm Moore wrote (20-04-12 07:53)

I don't understand why you say it's a driver problem when
every other application gets it right only LO misses stuff.

Oh sorry, I did not read that from your previous mails. My bad.
Apologies.

Steve_Edmonds1 · April 20, 2012, 7:35am

Hi.
It is something I have never managed to get to the bottom of in more than 5 years with Linux. In my case it doesn't cause me mutch problem, but it seems as though printer settings are stored in 2 places, and the settings may be different. Some applications get one lot of settings, other applications get the other set. A bit like you get with LO and other apps.
I have no idea, but can say I have observed the phenomenon. Sorry not much help.
steve

Ankit_Jain · April 20, 2012, 7:45am

Hi All,

I just want to explore about the filter in writer component that does the doc or xls to pdf conversion.If someone can give me the part of code or the filter that does this conversion it would be very helpful to me.Also what are the libraries that are involved in conversion.
Please give me some link from where I can get the complete knowledge on this.

Basically I want to develop my own tool in Java which would convert any word,xls or ppt kind of document to pdf format without using the direct utility of LibreOffice that does this conversion.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Ankit