Re: [Printing-architecture] Number of copies in pure PDF workflow

[Tobias Hoffmann <lprint-list@thax.hardliners.org>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3329 bytes --]

On 08/10/14 11:57, Till Kamppeter wrote:
> On 10/07/2014 11:45 PM, Tobias Hoffmann wrote:
>> I'm not sure what exactly is happening in your setup.
>> Maybe your PPD is missing something (- and I'm not an expert for PPD/PJL)?
>> Maybe you don't have a recent cups-filters (>= 1.0.34)?
>> Maybe you're hitting some edge-cases that are not handled correctly in
>> the current code?
>>
>> AFAIK no-one else has reported a problem with PJL in a pure pdf
>> workflow, and I can't find an obvious flaw in the code which deals with
>> PJL in pdftopdf. The code is also basically copied over from the old
>> pdftopdf implementation (cups-filters<=1.0.20); if your PPD does hw
>> copy with the old implementation, but not with>=1.0.34, I will probably
>> be able to fix that.
>>
> Tobias, do you know for what the call
>
> emitJCLOptions(stdout,ppd,param.deviceCopies);
>
> in the emitPreamble() function in pdftopdf_jcl.cc is good for? For me it
> looks like that it serves for inserting JCL options, but inserting JCL
> options is already done by
>
> ppdEmitJCL(ppd,stdout,param.jobId,param.user,param.title);

The code basically comes from the old pdftopdf implementation by Koji 
Otani. The same code is also present in imagetopdf.c .
There is also a section in cups-filter's README about that:

> if (Copies option is specified in the PPD file) {
>     mark Number of copies specified
> } else if (pdftopdfJCLCopies is specified in the PPD file) {
>     output JCL specified with JCLCopies
> }
>
> for (each marked options) {
>     if (pdftopdfJCL<marked option's name> is specified in the PPD file) {
>         output it's value as a JCL
>     } else if (pdftopdfJCLBegin attributes is specified in the PPD file) {
>         output "<option's name>=<marked choice>;" as a JCL
>     }
> }

AFAIUI Koji had to "invent" new pdftopdfJCL* keywords for the PJL + PDF 
case;
and for some reason ppdEmitJCL could not be used for them, so he added 
emitJCLOptions.


> I can even comment out
>
> emitJCLOptions(stdout,ppd,param.deviceCopies);
>
> and the output stays the same.

Probably because the PPD neither contain *Copies nor *pdftopdfJCLCopies?

> What I want to have is that if param.deviceCopies is not 1 (= multiple
> hardware copies) that
>
> @PJL SET COPIES=...
>
> is added.

Have you tried adding something along this lines:

*OpenUI *Copies/Number of Copies: PickOne
*OrderDependency: 100 AnySetup *Copies
*DefaultCopies: 1
*Copies 1/1: "@PJL SET COPIES=1"
*Copies 2/2: "@PJL SET COPIES=2"
*Copies 3/3: "@PJL SET COPIES=3"
*Copies 4/4: "@PJL SET COPIES=4"
...
*CloseUI: *Copies

similar to how Foomatic-based work?

A real PPD also has to take other settings into account here (e.g. 
collate, staple, ...), if the printer-hardware does not support all 
combinations /  has staple-limits / ...

> Currently all works fine for PPDs with "*cupsManualCopies: True" as
> pdftopdf generates software copies then. Without this entry pdftopdf
> sends only one copy of the PDF content and adds only a comment for
> subsequent filters. It does not add anything to generate the copies on a
> PDF printer.
The PPD author (printer manufacturer, ...) chooses to EITHER set 
"*cupsManualCopes: True" OR add *Copies / *pdftopdfJCLCopies / ... (i.e. 
whatever is required to generate correct JCL output for their printer 
model).

   Tobias




[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4817 bytes --]