Bug Reports article 1173288
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 Bug Id:     1173288
 Category:  utility
 Subcategory:  printer
 Release summary: s493
 Synopsis:  Printing Subsystem should support autosensing PS printers.
        Integrated in releases:
 Patch id:
 Description:
Many current laser printers including the worlds favourite the HP LaserJet IV
can
support standard text (HPGL) and PostScript either as standard or with the
addition
of a PostScript option ( SIMM ). lp does not support these printers very well.
If
you configure your printer as a PS printer, lpsched uses postio to communicate
to the printer. Postio expects the printer to behave like an Apple Laserwriter
and respond to
status requests, these printers don't do this. This is because they
"autosense"  the document by checking the first couple of charcaters
for %! - postio on the other hand expects the
printer to respond to a DC4 with something like %%[st atus: idle]%%     before
it starts sending data.

You can of course configure lp so that the printer is set up as a
"dumb" text printer
and turn the banner off it should now print the file if it is text of
postscript, but you can't
send specific startup strings ( like ESC&K2G  to tell the printer to map LF
to CRLF )
because this would break the postscript document..
 Work around:
Write a custom filter and submit with lpfilter:

1) Create a dummy terminfo entry:

edit /tmp/ibm_printer

#dummy entry that does nothing
ibm_printer,
        use=dumb,


compile it:

tic -v /tmp/ibm_printer

2) Submit the filter to the lp system:

create the filter program: /etc/lp/ibm-filter



#!/bin/sh
#
# An awk filter for an IBM laser that can auto-sense if the file sent is
# PostScript or text. The filter decides if the file is PostScript bt checking
# the first 2 characters of the first line. If these characters are %! then
# the file is assumed to be PostScript. If the file is PostScript then
# the standard input is  copied unmodified to the standard output.
# After all data is sent an EOF character is sent.
# If the file is text, the standard  input is copied to the standard output
#  A FF is send after all the data
#

AWK=/usr/bin/nawk

$AWK '

BEGIN {ORS= "\n" ; PS_TRAILER="\004" ;
TEXT_TRAILER="\f"  }
{
        if(NR==1) {
                start=substr($0,1,2)
                structured_ps=substr($0,1,10)        if(start == "%!" ){
                        PS="yes"
                        if(structured_ps == "%!PS-Adobe") {
                                 SPS="yes"
                        }
                }
                else  { PS="no"  }
                #
                # The PS interpreter wants to see "%!PS-Adobe" but a post script
                # file need only have "%!" to be a postscript file. This
                # will let the printer have what it wants !
                #
                if(PS=="yes") {
                        if(SPS=="yes") {
                                print $0
                        }
                        else { print "%!PS-Adobe" }
                }
                # If the file is not postscript at all , then print first line.
                else  print $0
                        }
        else {

                        # just print all lines after the first
                        print $0
                }
}
END { ORS= "" ; if(PS== "yes") print PS_TRAILER ; else print
TEXT_TRAILER }
'

exit 0

Make it executable by lp

Create a filter description file.
=================================

Here is an example:

/etc/lp/fd/ibm.fd
====================

Input types: any
Output types: ibmspec
Printer types: any
Printers: any
Filter type: fast
Command: /etc/lp/ibm-filter


Register the filter with the lp spooler.
========================================

lpfilter -F /etc/lp/fd/ibm.fd -f ibmspec

NOTE: The filter name SHOULD be the same as output type defined in the
printer definition file.


3) Set up a printer:

lpadmin -p <printer_name> -v /dev/term/a -T ibm_printer -I ibmspec
enable <printer_name>
accept <printer_name>
4) Disable the printer banner.


Because the banner is created by the interface file, it will not pass though
your new filter. This could give strange results or stop the filter
working at all ! To disable the banner, edit
/etc/lp/interfaces/<printer_name>

Change:

nobanner="no"

to:

nobanner="yes"


If you want a filter AND a banner, rewrite the filter to create the banner
rather than letting the interface file create it.
 History:
        Submitter:              mark.fenwick@uk Date:   07/28/94
        Dispatch Operator:      bugtraq Date:   07/28/94
        Evaluator:              jacobs@central  Date:   08/09/94
        Closeout Operator:      jacobs@central  Date:   08/09/94

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