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Date:      Tue, 5 May 2020 20:23:31 +0200
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        Victor Sudakov <vas@sibptus.ru>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Brother HL-L2340D printer and lpd?
Message-ID:  <20200505202331.53374f21.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <20200505180101.GA35751@admin.sibptus.ru>
References:  <20200503171259.GA48627@admin.sibptus.ru> <20200505161952.GA34844@admin.sibptus.ru> <20200505185510.00b622e3.freebsd@edvax.de> <20200505180101.GA35751@admin.sibptus.ru>

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On Wed, 6 May 2020 01:01:01 +0700, Victor Sudakov wrote:
> Polytropon wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > I'm trying to use a Brother HL-L2340D printer as a simple networked
> > > > line printer with lpd. I've successfully used HP and Canon printers like
> > > > that with a simple printcap like this:
> > > 
> > > The story continues with some good news.
> > > 
> > > Thanks to much insight and help from Polytropon (off list also), and
> > > this page:
> > > https://support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hll2340dw_us_eu_as&faqid=faq00100602_000
> > > 
> > > I've been able to print PDF files (lpr -P ps mozilla.pdf) 
> > > on this printer with the following printcap entry:
> > > 
> > > ps|Brother HL-L2340D series PostScript:\
> > >         :sh:\
> > >         :lp=9100@192.168.1.74:\
> > >         :if=/usr/local/etc/ps2pcl.sh:\
> > >         :sd=/var/spool/output/lpd2:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:
> > > 
> > > while the ps2pcl.sh looks like this (thanks again to Polytropon):
> > > 
> > > #!/bin/sh
> > > 
> > > #/usr/bin/printf "\033&k2G" || exit 2
> > > /usr/local/bin/gs -q -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dPARANOIDSAFER -dSAFER \
> > >         -sDEVICE=hl1250 -sPAPERSIZE=a4 -r600x600 \
> > >         -sOutputFile=- - && exit 0
> > > exit 2
> > > 
> > > So GhostScript's "hl1250" driver works wonders, I even see Cyrillic
> > > text in the printed PDF.
> > 
> > Basically, gs will "raster" any PS input it gets. So whatever
> > symbols are there, they will work without any further tools,
> > be it chinese symbols or images or german Umlauts. :-)
> 
> A PostScript translator (GhostScript or any other) can be expected to
> "raster" the PS input incorrectly if this input contains encodings it does
> not understand, or glyphs/fonts it is lacking.

Yes, especially if the construction of the PS (or the PDF it
is generated from) is incomplete. But if the input is already
rastered - no problem. :-)



> I've seen so many problems with Cyrillic in my life, believe me. I've
> seen PDFs with some Cyrillic glyphs replaced by garbage, and much more
> of such weird stuff than I wish to see.

I think that's also a result of UTF-8 vs. CP-866 vs. KOI-8
single / multi-byte mapping... yes, the german language is
still suffering from the same problem.



> > Thanks for posting the _solution_ to your problem. Future
> > readers will now know that gs's filter "hl1250" works with
> > this particular printer.
> 
> This is not a final solution. I'm currently hacking the Linux LPR
> "driver" for this printer (hll2340dlpr-3.2.0-1.i386.deb), and maybe
> (just maybe) I'll be able to figure out what Linux sends to it to enable
> ascii LPR printing.
> 
> In this package, there is a promising small linux binary which Linux
> uses as an if=. I guess it has magic within.
> 
> > 
> > 
> > > Now two questions are left:
> > > 
> > > 1. How the heck do I print text files with this setup? Should I convert
> > > them to PostScript first, and how? UTF-8 Cyrillic support is crucial.
> > 
> > Yes, gs expects PS as its input. For programs that print
> > (except here: Firefox), PS is the default output anyway.
> > But if you have ASCII text, you need to turn it into PS.
> > 
> > The easiest way to do this is the port "a2ps" (ASCII to
> 
> a2ps from packages is broken:
> 
> $ a2ps /etc/rc.conf
> a2ps: unknown medium `libpaper'

Install "libpaper" package and manually set a symlink in
/usr/local/etc: papersize -> papersize.a4 for standard ISO A4
paper, or papersize -> papersize.letter for US letter.

Also note that a2ps outputs to stdout, so you'll probably
want redirection:

	% a2ps /etc/rc.conf > rc.conf.ps

Note that you'll probably have to "man a2ps" to deviate from
the standard options, because those generate "2 pages on 1
with header" layout.



> > Personally, I use "encript" for turning ASCII reports
> 
> enscript is good, but it has huge problems with Cyrillic, and is totally
> lacking multibyte support (UTF-8).

Correct. That's why I had to use it with ISO-8859-1 standard
western europe character set (single byte per symbol) in order
to get Umlauts displayed correctly. Maybe another processing
step ("recode utf-8..koi8 <file>") can be used in the printer
filter.



> > > 2. How do I convince Mozilla Firefox that I now have a PostScript
> > > printer and it can print directly to it, not just to a PDF file? It does
> > > not seem to care for /etc/printcap.
> > 
> > Correct. Firefox doesn't care what you want. ;-)
> > 
> > The default "print to file" of Firefox now uses PDF, as
> > many modern printers accept PDF directly. But you can use
> > the tool "pdftops" installed by the port "xpdf".
> 
> No, it's not necessary, GhostScript eats PDFs just fine.

Cool, I didn't know that.



> > and address that printer from Firefox's print dialog,
> 
> Oh! I wish I knew how to add something to Firefox's print dialog! 
> Do you?

If you define several printers in /etc/printcap (and not
forget to run cap_mkdb), a system running lpr should have
the available printers listed in Firefox's print dialog.
Unless, of course, Firefox is hard-wired with CUPS, and
no CUPS - no printer selection.

Another idea might be to use the variable $PRINTER to name
the printer before starting Firefox. This variable will also
be used by the lp* tools if no -P<name> is specified. I
often use this as my default printer never is named "lp". :-)

	% lpq
	Laserjet is ready
	no entries

Currently I don't have access to a system that has both
Firefox and lpr installed so I cannot verify this suggestion.


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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