230 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
230 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
<HTML
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><HEAD
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><TITLE
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>Windows-only printers</TITLE
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NAME="GENERATOR"
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TITLE="Networks"
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HREF="x1751.htm"><LINK
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TITLE="How to print to a fax machine."
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HREF="x2029.htm"></HEAD
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><H1
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CLASS="sect1"
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><A
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NAME="winprinters"
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></A
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>Windows-only printers</H1
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><A
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NAME="AEN2007"
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></A
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><P
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>As I discussed earlier, some printers are inherently unsupported
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because they don't speak a normal printer language, instead using
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the computer's CPU to render a bitmap which is then piped to the
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printer at a fixed speed. In a few cases, these printers also
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speak something normal like PCL, but often they do not. In some
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(really low-end) cases, the printer doesn't even use a normal
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parallel connection but relies on the vendor's driver to emulate
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what should be hardware behavior (most importantly flow control).</P
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><P
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>In any case, there are a few possible workarounds if you find
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yourself stuck with such a lemon.</P
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="gs-win-redirector"
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></A
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>The Ghostscript Windows redirector</H2
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><P
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>There is now a Ghostscript printer driver available (called <B
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CLASS="command"
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>mswinpr2</B
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>) that will print using Windows GDI
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calls. There is also a port redirection tool called <B
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CLASS="command"
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>redmon</B
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> which will run a print job through
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Ghostscript before finally printing it. (Rather like an <TT
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CLASS="option"
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>if</TT
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> filter in Unix's LPD). Taken all together,
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this allows a Windows machine to print PostScript to a
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Windows-only printer through the vendor's driver.</P
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><P
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>If you have a host-based printer that can't be used directly, you
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can export it as a "Postscript" printer by using redmon,
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Ghostscript, and mswinpr2 on a Windows PC and print through the
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vendor's drivers.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="hp-winprinters"
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></A
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>HP Winprinters</H2
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><P
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>Some HP printers use "Printing Performance Architecture"
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(marketing speak for "we were too cheap to implement PCL"). This
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is supported in a roundabout way via the pbm2ppa translator
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written by Tim Norman. Basically, you use ghostscript to render
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PostScript into a bitmapped image in pbm format and then use
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pbm2ppa to translate this into a printer-specific ppa format
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bitmap ready to be dumped to the printer. This program may also
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come in ghostscript driver format by now.</P
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><P
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>The ppa software can be had from <A
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HREF="http://www.rpi.edu/~normat/technical/ppa/"
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TARGET="_top"
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>the ppa home
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page</A
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>; pbm2ppa supports some models of the HP 720, 820,
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and 1000; read the documentation that comes with the package for
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more details on ppa printer support.</P
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="sect2"
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><H2
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CLASS="sect2"
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><A
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NAME="lex-winprinters"
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></A
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>Lexmark Winprinters</H2
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><P
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>Most of the cheap Lexmark inkjets use a proprietary language and
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are therefore Winprinters. However, Henryk Paluch has written a
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program which can print on a Lexmark 7000. Hopefully he'll be
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able to figure out color and expand support to other Lexmark
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inkjets. See <A
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HREF="http://bimbo.fjfi.cvut.cz/~paluch/l7kdriver/"
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TARGET="_top"
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>here</A
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>
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for more info.</P
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><P
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>Similarly, there are now drivers for the 5700, 1000, 1100, 2070,
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3200, and others. See the supported printers listing above, and
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my web site, for more information on obtaining these drivers.</P
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></DIV
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></DIV
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><DIV
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CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
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><HR
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ALIGN="LEFT"
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WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
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SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
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BORDER="0"
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CELLPADDING="0"
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CELLSPACING="0"
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="x1751.htm"
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ACCESSKEY="P"
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>Prev</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="t1.htm"
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ACCESSKEY="H"
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>Home</A
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></TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
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><A
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HREF="x2029.htm"
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ACCESSKEY="N"
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>Next</A
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></TD
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></TR
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><TR
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="left"
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VALIGN="top"
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>Networks</TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="34%"
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ALIGN="center"
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VALIGN="top"
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> </TD
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><TD
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WIDTH="33%"
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ALIGN="right"
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VALIGN="top"
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>How to print to a fax machine.</TD
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></TR
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> |