From: John A. Sullivan III on
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 13:50 +0000, Camaleón wrote:
> On Sat, 15 May 2010 08:52:21 -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 10:05 +0000, Camaleón wrote:
>
> >> Linux PDF "readers" are in a very good shape. In fact, I don't even
> >> have Acrobat Reader installed on my linux systems.
>
> > I thought this, too, until recently when working with companies which
> > use PDF heavily. I had always used KPDF as it seemed so much lighter
> > and faster than acroread. However, it has only a very small portion of
> > the full functionality of acroread. I had never noticed but our clients
> > did.
>
> Acrobat Reader for linux has some nice features, I agree. One of them is
> the ability to print brochures and booklets in a easy way.
>
> But is so "bloat" that I have discarded from any of my linux systems and
> use Evince almost exclusively (before Evince I was very happy with KPDF).
> On windows I try to install Foxit Reader or something similar.
>
> > It's everything from small things (like mousing into to lower left
> > corner and seeing the document size -very handy for non-standard sizes
> > such as construction drawings) to the massive printing problem that
> > afflicts all other Linux pdf readers - at least in Lenny, no pdf reader
> > could print non-default print sizes. No matter what we did, every
> > single PDF reader we tried insisted on printing to the default paper
> > size. Apparently this is a well known bug from the hours of searching
> > we did. Only acroread would let our client print their construction
> > drawings without shrinking them down letter or A4 size - John
>
> Mmmm... I'm not sure to fully understand the problem :-?
>
> I have a PDF file sized "prc5 Envelope, Landscape (220 x 110 mm)" which I
> open with Evince (2.22.2). Then I send the document for printing with any
> of our HP laserjet printers using the envelope feeder. I put the envelope
> in the tray, from Evince I go under "File / Printer settings" and from
> "Paper size" dropdown menu I choose "DL Envelope". The output is printed
> correctly, obeying the size of the printed media (DL envelope) and fiting
> the text correctly into it.
>
> Is that what are you referring about or are you (or your clients)
> experiencig another problem?
<snip>
In this case, the client had a Ricoh MP W3600 plotter although, if I
recall correctly, we had the same problem with all the printers - it was
just more obvious with the plotter. Let's say they wanted to send a
24x36 drawing to the plotter. If they send it through any of the FOSS
PDF viewers, it prints a 24x36 job but the image is always the default
paper size, i.e., the drawing would be reduced to 8.5x11 and printed in
the middle of a 24x36 piece of paper. In some cases, we sent two pages
per side - reducing and rotating the drawings to fit two per page. In
this case, two 8.5x11 images appeared on the large sheet!

Acroread is not without flaws either. Versions previous to 9.3.2 could
not see our CUPS print server's printers. 9.3.2 can see them but,
whenever it prints, it sends the default page region. Thus, if I
directly choose, say this 3600 plotter, and send a 36x48 drawing, I see
acroread has created a print job with -o PageSize=36x48 but also with -o
PageRegion=A4 (or whatever either the ppd default is or the first
PageRegion listed in the ppd if no default is defined). We've seen the
same thing when trying to send 11x17 jobs to other printers - it prints
Letter size (or whatever the default PageRegion is). We've escalated to
Ricoh but this really smells like an acroread bug.


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From: Camaleón on
On Sat, 15 May 2010 15:46:36 -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:

> On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 13:50 +0000, Camaleón wrote:

>> Mmmm... I'm not sure to fully understand the problem :-?

(...)

>> Is that what are you referring about or are you (or your clients)
>> experiencig another problem?

> In this case, the client had a Ricoh MP W3600 plotter although, if I
> recall correctly, we had the same problem with all the printers - it was
> just more obvious with the plotter. Let's say they wanted to send a
> 24x36 drawing to the plotter. If they send it through any of the FOSS
> PDF viewers, it prints a 24x36 job but the image is always the default
> paper size, i.e., the drawing would be reduced to 8.5x11 and printed in
> the middle of a 24x36 piece of paper. In some cases, we sent two pages
> per side - reducing and rotating the drawings to fit two per page. In
> this case, two 8.5x11 images appeared on the large sheet!

I see... just two things:

1/ Printer driver is vital for a correct paper size detection, but I've
seen that Ricoh provides a PostScript driver for that device (MP W3600
plotter) so this shouldn't be a problem at all in your case.

2/ Printer settings (in CUPS) and PDF viewer settings paper size for
printing. These values are also important, I mean, if you are sending a
PDF file with a custom size you have to previously (an manually) adjust
the paper size settings accordingly before sending the job for printing.
This can be done in Evince very easily.

If you do not tweak this, the default CUPS settings for that printer will
prevail for the job.

> Acroread is not without flaws either. Versions previous to 9.3.2 could
> not see our CUPS print server's printers. 9.3.2 can see them but,
> whenever it prints, it sends the default page region. Thus, if I
> directly choose, say this 3600 plotter, and send a 36x48 drawing, I see
> acroread has created a print job with -o PageSize=36x48 but also with -o
> PageRegion=A4 (or whatever either the ppd default is or the first
> PageRegion listed in the ppd if no default is defined). We've seen the
> same thing when trying to send 11x17 jobs to other printers - it prints
> Letter size (or whatever the default PageRegion is). We've escalated to
> Ricoh but this really smells like an acroread bug.

Yep. Acrobat Reader has its own glitches. Last time I tested in a linux
box (that was 2 years ago) was not very "friendly" when choosing the
printer and/or printer options and required manual user intervention :-/

OTOH, it made "auto-scalation" and "auto-rotation" of the output document
quite well :-)

Greetings,

--
Camaleón


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From: John A. Sullivan III on
On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 20:31 +0000, Camaleón wrote:
> On Sat, 15 May 2010 15:46:36 -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 13:50 +0000, Camaleón wrote:
>
> >> Mmmm... I'm not sure to fully understand the problem :-?
>
> (...)
>
> >> Is that what are you referring about or are you (or your clients)
> >> experiencig another problem?
>
> > In this case, the client had a Ricoh MP W3600 plotter although, if I
> > recall correctly, we had the same problem with all the printers - it was
> > just more obvious with the plotter. Let's say they wanted to send a
> > 24x36 drawing to the plotter. If they send it through any of the FOSS
> > PDF viewers, it prints a 24x36 job but the image is always the default
> > paper size, i.e., the drawing would be reduced to 8.5x11 and printed in
> > the middle of a 24x36 piece of paper. In some cases, we sent two pages
> > per side - reducing and rotating the drawings to fit two per page. In
> > this case, two 8.5x11 images appeared on the large sheet!
>
> I see... just two things:
>
> 1/ Printer driver is vital for a correct paper size detection, but I've
> seen that Ricoh provides a PostScript driver for that device (MP W3600
> plotter) so this shouldn't be a problem at all in your case.
Yup - we are using the Ricoh supplied PPD
>
> 2/ Printer settings (in CUPS) and PDF viewer settings paper size for
> printing. These values are also important, I mean, if you are sending a
> PDF file with a custom size you have to previously (an manually) adjust
> the paper size settings accordingly before sending the job for printing.
> This can be done in Evince very easily.
The PPD had most of the needed paper sizes for the plotter. We did add
a custom size or two.

The current workaround is to use a custom printer and send it to
kprinter :-(
>
> If you do not tweak this, the default CUPS settings for that printer will
> prevail for the job.
>
> > Acroread is not without flaws either. Versions previous to 9.3.2 could
> > not see our CUPS print server's printers. 9.3.2 can see them but,
> > whenever it prints, it sends the default page region. Thus, if I
> > directly choose, say this 3600 plotter, and send a 36x48 drawing, I see
> > acroread has created a print job with -o PageSize=36x48 but also with -o
> > PageRegion=A4 (or whatever either the ppd default is or the first
> > PageRegion listed in the ppd if no default is defined). We've seen the
> > same thing when trying to send 11x17 jobs to other printers - it prints
> > Letter size (or whatever the default PageRegion is). We've escalated to
> > Ricoh but this really smells like an acroread bug.
>
> Yep. Acrobat Reader has its own glitches. Last time I tested in a linux
> box (that was 2 years ago) was not very "friendly" when choosing the
> printer and/or printer options and required manual user intervention :-/
>
> OTOH, it made "auto-scalation" and "auto-rotation" of the output document
> quite well :-)
>
> Greetings,
>
> --
> Camaleón
>
>


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From: Camaleón on
On Sat, 15 May 2010 18:25:22 -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:

> On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 20:31 +0000, Camaleón wrote:

>> 2/ Printer settings (in CUPS) and PDF viewer settings paper size for
>> printing. These values are also important, I mean, if you are sending a
>> PDF file with a custom size you have to previously (an manually) adjust
>> the paper size settings accordingly before sending the job for
>> printing. This can be done in Evince very easily.

> The PPD had most of the needed paper sizes for the plotter. We did add
> a custom size or two.

Yes, but you still have to explicitly define a custom paper size in
Evince (or any other pdf viewer) so the PDF prints correctly.

> The current workaround is to use a custom printer and send it to
> kprinter :-(

Try to define the paper size settings within the application, that should
do the trick.

Greetings,

--
Camaleón


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