[Samba] samba printing with cups driver and cups with non PS printers

[Andreas Moroder]

Hello,

I just finished to read chapter 22 of the samba howto.
This chapter explains very well how printing from a win client via samba 
and cups work.

If I understood it right, printing a file from windows to a non 
postscript printer via cups driver, samba an cups works like this:

- application prints generating an EMF file ( windows spooler )
- the cups ( or adobe ) printer driver converts this file to postscript 
and sends it to samba that passes the file to cups
- cups takes the ps file and creates a raster ( bitmap )
- cups converts this raster data to the file printed ( PCL or ESC/P )

IMHO there are steps here that could be avoided.

EMF files are no more than a series of calls to windows GDI funtions.
This GDI function create a DIB ( device independent bitmap )

Wouldn't it be more efficient to let windows convert the EMF file to a 
DIB and convert this direct to a cups raster and send this to cups ?

The two conversion from EMF to PS and from PS to raster could be 
replaced by one.
Also possible conversion problems between emf and ps could be avoided.

This printer driver could continue to use the PPD system for configuration.

The mime type for cups rasters is also registered at IANA.

http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/vnd.cups-raster.


Bye
Andreas