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Date:      Tue, 5 Nov 2013 23:28:28 -0700 (MST)
From:      Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To:        Charles Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
Cc:        "O. Hartmann" <ohartman@zedat.fu-berlin.de>, FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: CUPS and Epson Epson WF-3540 on FreeBSD 9.2/11.0-CURRENT
Message-ID:  <alpine.BSF.2.00.1311052317070.66409@wonkity.com>
In-Reply-To: <F2467CDD-B2DA-4778-A4F9-CF212DD47874@mac.com>
References:  <20131102115534.71afaa03@thor.walstatt.dyndns.org> <1383669454.21378.43329325.475E1FD0@webmail.messagingengine.com> <20131105205801.13be6358@thor.walstatt.dyndns.org> <F2467CDD-B2DA-4778-A4F9-CF212DD47874@mac.com>

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On Tue, 5 Nov 2013, Charles Swiger wrote:

> Hi--
>
> On Nov 5, 2013, at 11:58 AM, O. Hartmann <ohartman@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>> I don't think it's likely you'll find this working. I'd suggest you
>>> find a printer that can natively speak postscript and works with SANE
>>> without a proprietary driver. It's getting hard to find printers that
>>> can do this, though.
>>
>> A pity.
>> I think it is hard to find an ink-jet printer that "speaks" natively
>> PS. Mots of them I saw have their proprietary BLOB driver managing the
>> communication if they are multi-function-systems - mostly Linux.
>
> It costs money to license a real PostScript interpreter from Adobe, which
> means that the cheaper inkjets won't pony up for that capability.

Ghostscript supports a number of native inkjet page description 
languages.  I have a couple of older Epson inkjets that I think 
Ghostscript will drive directly.

> It looks like the Lexmark Pro4000 and the HP OfficeJet 276dw are sanely priced
> PostScript-capable inkjets, but there are literally hundreds of laser printers
> around which have native PostScript support, and their cost-per-page usually
> is much more reasonable than inkjets end up being.

Maybe those models are fine, but generally higher-end inkjets are 
disproportionately priced.  And because few people buy them, those extra 
features are not heavily tested.

Relevant articles:

This one shows setting up a print filter with Ghostscript:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/lpdprinting.html

And this talks about the value of a used office laser printer:
http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/usedlasers.html



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