[Samba] Fwd: [Foomatic] Foomatic PPD files and Windows clients

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Hi,

I am forwarding this from the foomatic-devel list to the Samba
users and the Samba developers lists in the hope to broaden the
potential of feedback on this crucial (for everyone who prints
through *NIX) topic.

Cheers,
Kurt


-----------

From: Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter at gmx.net>
Newsgroups: linuxprinting.foomatic.devel
Organization: LinuxPrinting.org
Cc: cups at easysw.com
To: foomatic-devel at linuxprinting.org
Subject: [Foomatic] Foomatic PPD files and Windows clients
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 19:42:55 +0200


Oi,

all PPD files generated by Foomatic are Adobe-compliant. You can test this by running them through "cupstestppd" of CUPS 1.1.19 or newer. If you don�t have cupstestppd on your box, 
run it on the CUPS web site:

http://www.cups.org/testppd.php

But Adobe-compliance does not mean that the PPDs work necessarily also on Windows clients. There are even issues with Adobe�s PostScript driver for Windows.

Several postings from users (on the CUPS list, but also private mails to me) revealed the following problems:

- *ShortNickname and *Nickname should not contain "+" and ","

- UI strings (translations) of option and choice names should not contain more than 40 characters

I will fix that soon in the PPD-O-Matic PPD generator of the Foomatic system.

I ask you to test and report if you have access to a Windows machine which could serve as a client. Please try the different PostScript drivers which are available for Windows 
(Microsoft, Adobe, CUPS) at first with the original PPDs from linuxprinting.org or from your distro. Which Windows drivers work? Now edit the PPD files according to one of the points 
mentioned above. Which drivers work now? If not all drivers work, make the PPD according to both points and test again. Are all the drivers working now? If not give us as much info 
as possible to fix a probably remaining issue. Especially tell us what you did when you made it working by further editing.

If the CUPS driver for Windows causes problems with the PPDs as they are available now on linuxprinting.org, please report on

http://www.cups.org/str.php

as the CUPS driver should work with all PPDs which pass "cupstestppd",

Reporting bugs (and getting them fixed) in the Microsoft or Adobe drivers is not so easy. So please post your results here, so that the Foomatic PPDs can be made compatible by 
modifications in the PPD generator.

I also suggest a modification in "cupstestppd": One could add a command line switch with which the PPD is also checked for compatibility with Windows clients. The web interface could 
have an appropriate checkbox then.

    Till


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