Blank trailing pages when printing

[Bill Campbell]

On Tue, Aug 18, 1998 at 03:44:46AM +1000, Jordan Krushen wrote:
>I've just set up samba as a print server, and it works beautifully, with one
>exception:  after every job, the printer (an HP LaserJet) prints an extra
>(blank) page.  Is this a known problem, and if so, what can I do to fix it?

Typically this is a poorly written printer interface filter.  I do two
things with all my text print scripts:

  1.  I strip all trailing blank lines which eliminates problems with
      programs that pad everything out to 66 lines per page (many database
      and accounting programs do this as well as nroff).  The script does
      this by counting blank lines, then sending that many newlines if it
      comes to a non-blank.

  2.  End all  HP print jobs with an ``ESC E'' sequence rather than a FF
      (form feed).  This resets the printer, printing anything that's in
      the buffer, but doesn't print anything if the buffer's empty.

Bill
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