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bzipitidoo

Member

Registered: 2010-01-29

Posts: 33

xpdf printing problem

I have an HP Officejet Pro 8500 connected to my LAN, and it all seems to be working except xpdf.  First some possibly useful information.

I'm using hplip and CUPS.  Figured out that hp-setup is the magic command to use after wasting much time trying to configure CUPS through the browser interface at http://localhost:631, and trying to configure scanning by editing files in /etc.  Just couldn't get scanning to work.  But after using hp-setup, can scan to xsane, and print web pages from Firefox, images from the GIMP, and documents from Open Office.  (Well, haven't tried the fax yet.)

Discovered a minor issue with hp-setup.  For a networked printer, it must be invoked with the IP address, like this: "hp-setup -i 192.168.1.200".  If invoked as just "hp-setup" it will complain that you don't have pyqt installed, and when you do install that, then it brings up a GUI, finds your printer after you tell it to search the network, and then claims it can't communicate with it, with this message:

error: Unable to communicate with device (code=12): hpfax:/net/Officejet_Pro_8500_A909a

So, the remaining problem.  if I print a pdf file with "lpr somefile.pdf" at the command line, it works.  But if I print that same file from within xpdf, using "lpr" as the print command, the printer prints this:

Error: /ioerror in --image--
                                        Operand stack:
                                                                Execution stack:
                                                                                             %interp_exit    .runex

I tried "lpr -l" in xpdf, and that only made things worse.  How do I configure xpdf properly for this?

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: xpdf printing problem

The xpdf printer command should be "lpr -PNameofMyPrinter" , substituting the correct name of your printer after the "-P"

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Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

bzipitidoo

Member

Registered: 2010-01-29

Posts: 33

Re: xpdf printing problem

No, that's not it.  In CUPS, I have set the default printer to be that HP Officejet, so that the -P parameter is not necessary.  As I said, the system can print pdf documents just fine with "lpr somefile.pdf".  It is xpdf that screws it up.

I suppose one answer is to ditch xpdf for something else, but what?

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Re: xpdf printing problem

Oh, well you could try epdfView, which is reasonably lightweight, but I find it renders complex PDF documents much slower than xpdf.

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Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.