Very Computer

by **Jim Shaffer, Jr** » Tue, 28 Sep 2004 11:50:49

I just bought a Brother HL-5150D laser printer. I set it up under CUPS using
the PPD file from the installation disk. It prints double-sided pages fine if I
select a duplex mode from the printing options dialog in KDE. However, on my
Windows machines, the printing options dialog (using the same PPD file) not only
offers me the ability to pring up to 16 pages per page (KDE only goes to 4 as it
did on my non-PostScript inkjet printers), but it also offers the ability to lay
out the pages for binding into booklets. Is there some way to get this
functionality from CUPS and/or KDE? I understand that there may be programs to
do such layout, but I was under the impression that if I used the
manufacturer-supplied PPD file I would have access to all the options the
printer was natively capable of. (On the other hand, I see an option for poster
printing under Linux that I *didn't* see under Windows, but it's on a different
tab from the duplex options so I suspect it may be a KDE feature rather than a
feature of the printer drivers. Right or wrong?)

by **John-Paul Stewar** » Tue, 28 Sep 2004 23:54:40

> I just bought a Brother HL-5150D laser printer. I set it up under CUPS using
> the PPD file from the installation disk. It prints double-sided pages fine if I
> select a duplex mode from the printing options dialog in KDE. However, on my
> Windows machines, the printing options dialog (using the same PPD file) not only
> offers me the ability to pring up to 16 pages per page (KDE only goes to 4 as it
> did on my non-PostScript inkjet printers), but it also offers the ability to lay
> out the pages for binding into booklets. Is there some way to get this
> functionality from CUPS and/or KDE? I understand that there may be programs to
> do such layout, but I was under the impression that if I used the
> manufacturer-supplied PPD file I would have access to all the options the
> printer was natively capable of.

'psnup' and 'psbook' (both from the psutils package, IIRC) are used for
multiple pages on a single sheet and booklet style printing. They're
both command line utilities that re-arrange the PostScript sent to the
printer.

The fact that Windows shows these in the printing options dialog is
irrelevant, IMHO. It is unlikely that the printer itself supports these
functions in hardware. It is more likely that the Windows driver is
implementing the functionality in software---effectively providing a GUI
wrapper around the calls to psnup and psbook. IOW, it's a not a matter
of having "access to all the options the printer was natively capable
of", it's a matter of the Windows driver doing a little extra
manipulation before printing begins.

Very Computer

booklet printing on PostScript printers

booklet printing on PostScript printers

booklet printing on PostScript printers