[Desktop_printing] PPD settings vs IPP options

[Hin-Tak Leung]

--- Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter at gmx.net> wrote:
<snipped>
> > The biggest problem in the applications is that they don't
> > produce clean PostScript.
> > With "clean PostScript" I mean
> > - printer independent PostScript
> > - scalable/translatable PostScript
> > - DSC conforming PostScript
> > - by default only up to PostScript level 2
> >   special fonts (e.g. CJK) may require level 3 but even this
> >   is actually possible (but complicated) with level 1.
> > 
> 
> Hope the switchover to PDF will eliminate this problem or at least make
> at least bad print data from applications occur less often.

I don't know about the other issues, but there are actually 4-5 PDF specs
out there (the latest is 1.6?), and there are only 3 PS levels; and either 
with various level of compliance and the CJK font issue is actually 
getting worse with pdf's, compared with postscript.

> > The second problem in the applications is that they let the
> > user create whatever nice looking document but they don't
> > help the user to care about possible limitations when printing:
> > - the imaged area in the document is bigger than the imageable
> >   area of the printer
> > - the document has a fixed design for a particular paper size
> >   with fixed assumptions about the margins but it should
> >   print well on any printer
> > - the document looks nice on a color screen but on a b/w printer
> >   differnt colors become the same level of gray
> > - embedded images look nice at 75 dpi on the color screen
> >   but horrible after printing with a 600 dpi b/w printer
> > - ...
> 
> These are important points which we should discuss on the printing summit.
> 
> I suggest the following for the apps:
> 
> - On the editing screen of a document-producing application there should
> be a fine gray frame to mark the imageable area of the currently chosen
> printer (switchable).
> 
> - There should be a print integrity check, which tells the user whether
> there are graphical elements in the document which are beyond the
> imageable area of the current printer, whether there are pages with a
> paper size not available on the printer, colored elements when a bw
> printer is chosen, embedded images with way to low resolution, ... and
> an easy way to quickly jump to the offending element, Craig, you have
> chosen me such a feature in Scribus in Luxembourg.
> 
> - The printer's resolution should be read out from the print
> queue/PPD/CUPS and images pre-rendered in a resolution compatible to the
> printer.
> 
> - There should be a bw-view button, so that one can quickly switch the
> screen view of the document to bw ore grayscale, to visualize problems
> which can occur when faxing or printing in black and white.

That's going to be difficult - unless everything goes through a special 
and standardized preview application (.e.g. xpdf or ghostscript provides 
an embedded preview function), rather than have their own preview panes.  

HTL


		
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