[Desktop_printing] PPD settings vs IPP options

Ulrich Wehner uwehner at lanier.com
Tue Feb 14 07:31:47 PST 2006


very intriguing discussion!

i have my own little philosophy on the topic of creating documents 
(printed or not)

ideally a user will only (need to) know what they want their document to 
look like. essentially they would "describe" what they want.

Some of the things they want are printer specific, some are not.

Most users do NOT know if the (network) printer has 1 or 7 paper sources, 
they do not know which tray has what paper size loaded in what direction, 
they might not care what exit trays are available, and so forth.

providing feedback from the printer and from the PPD to build a relevant 
UI is a good start. At the same time you want to be able to select options 
that are NOT available on the selected printer.

example: if your printer has 4 trays, all of them loaded with Letter 
plain\recycled, you still want to be able to select letterhead, 11x17, 
booklet stapling and so forth.

As long as you tell the printer what it is that you want, it should 
produce what you asked for.

if a paper size or mediatype and so forth are not available, the printer 
should (and most will) prompt on the operator panel to place the proper 
media type, and paper size, into the the device in an orientation that 
allows booklet stapling. It will (should) also place the paper in the 
proper output bin that allows for stapling.


UI constraints can take care of the "Physically impossible" selections. 
You still need to be able to select "currently unavailable" settings.


My personal favorite are tray calls. Why is it so difficult to break 
people (and some manufacturers) from selecting paper trays instead of 
paper sizes and mediatypes?

most users will not remember what tray their document printed from, but 
letter size and transparency are obvious and relevant selections.

Describing the document in that manner is clearly more portable between 
different printers. This will allow for printer pooling, splitting of jobs 
between devices and so forth, even if those printers are different models, 
even from different manufacturers. Incidentally PDF has some of the same 
goals.


just my 2 cents on the topic.

tell the printer what you want instead of "guessing" what the printer 
might be able to do.... On a printer with 7 paper sources or 10 output 
bins guessing is like playing the lottery.





Regards
Uli Wehner
Solutions Engineer
Lanier Worldwide, Inc

A Ricoh Company
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