Re: Issue with PCL3GUI output

The best I could suggest is to rattle down the list of printers
supported by the pcl driver, and see if one works.

TBH, pcl3 is such a moving target, with so many variations across the
various HP printers that claim to use "PCL3", it's quite possible the
existing code just doesn't support it.

Worse, the pcl3 device is no longer really supported with the original
author no longer interested, and no one on the Ghostscript team with the
knowledge or printer access (or time, frankly) to take it on.

If someone were to reverse engineer what's going on, and create a patch,
I'll be happy to review it, and get it committed.

Chris


On 22/07/17 11:32, Paul Goyette wrote:
> Hopefully this hasn't been asked before - I looked and didn't see it...
> 
> 
> I'm new to ghostscript, so I might be doing things totally wrong.  But
> I've got a "HP DeskJet Ink Advantage 2545" printer to which I am
> connected via WiFi network.  HP is apparently notorious for not making
> detailed specs available, but as far as I can tell this printer only
> talks "PCL3GUI2".  I looked at the .ppd file available from HP for
> "DeskJet_2540_Series" and it seems to confirm, with a line that says
> 
>     *hpPrinterLanguage: "pcl3gui2"
> 
> As a simple test, I tried to print some plain text using the following
> shell script, using enscript to provide post-script input corresponding
> to the plain-text:
> 
> #! /bin/sh
> 
> echo "This is a test." | \
> enscript -Bh -q -p- | \
> /usr/pkg/bin/gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -r300 -sDEVICE=pcl3
> -sSubdevice=unspec \
>     -sPJLLanguage=PCL3GUI2 -sOutputFile=- -sPAPERSIZE=letter \
>     -sColourModel=CMYK -dBlackLevels=4 -dCMYLevels=4 \
>     -sPrintQuality=presentation -sMedium=plain -
> 
> The ghostscript command was suggested by a friend who uses ghostscript
> (but has some unrelated flavor of printer).
> 
> The output of the shell script appears reasonable (although I certainly
> didn't decode the embedded 2.5K graphic!).  Yet when the output is sent
> to the printer (via netcat, for example), nothing gets printed.  The
> paper feeds, stalls for a brief moment, and then ejects, but no ink gets
> put to paper.  (I'm connecting to the printer via "raw" port 9100, so
> there's no feedback nor any sort of diagnostic or error message from the
> printer.)
> 
> I feel certain that there's something wrong with my script, but I really
> haven't a clue where to go from here.  I have tried removing the last
> two lines of the arguments, and I've tried PJLLanguage=PCL3GUI (without
> the trailing 2), but neither of these changes makes any difference.
> 
> Does anyone out there have a "magic incantation" for this HP DJ-2545
> printer?
> 
> Thanks in advance for any help you might offer.
> 
> 
> 
> +------------------+--------------------------+----------------------------+
> 
> | Paul Goyette     | PGP Key fingerprint:     | E-mail
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> | (Retired)        | FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651 | paul at whooppee dot
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> | Kernel Developer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette at netbsd dot
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> +------------------+--------------------------+----------------------------+
>