Remote printer to print condensed mode

[Peter Chuang]

Hi Experts,

I set up a remote printer in RP4440 HP-UX 11.11.
This printer(HP LaserJet 4050 Only has parallel port) is attached to my Windows XP. I can print from HP-UX, but if I print from the application sometimes required condensed mode. The printer still print size 12 font, anything further than 8 1/2 inch the data is lost. How do I solve this problem? Thanks.

Peter Chuang

[TTr · Accepted solution]

Any options that you type on the lp command line, they are ignored when it comes to remote printers. Your only option is to change it to a network spooler which you can't since the printer has only parallel port.

There is a workaround but it requires some effort and I don't know if you can make it work with your application printing. You will have to prepend and append the appropriate escape sequences to the print file before you send it to the printer.

[Steve Post]

This might work. When I send a printout to a laserjet, sometimes I forget to skip the banner page (option -nb). When I did that, I saw in the lower left hand corner of the page all these night printer options.
One is -c for condenced
-landscape
-ofp12 12characters per horizontal inch
-ovsi5 5 lines per vertical inch
-duplex print double sided

Look at the banner page.

.........ok..... perhaps that's not good enough? The next part gives you some painful details. Please shield your eyes.






Lets say my printer is call xyz.
There is a file /etc/lp/interface/model.orig/xzy. For me, this is a copy of file net_lj4x. Then I made my laserjet printer, I told the system it was this type of remote printer.

I copy file xyz to $HOME/xyz.thingy
I open it with vi: vi $HOME/xyz.thingy
I set ignore case, via :ic
I search for the word: horizontal
I find lots of goobly gook that echos out escape sequences for certain options.
I know backslash 033 means the escape key ascii character. The rest looks like strange junk.
Well..
If you find an old laserjet printer manual you will see that the stuff has some meaning.
For example characters per inch in pitch.
That is
escapekey
ampersand
left parentheses
the letter s
12 ...for 12 characters per inch
H for the end of the escape sequence.

the horizontal is
escapekey
ampersand
letter-k
6 ...for 6 lines per inch
H for the end of the escape sequence.

And you can put both commands in one escape sequence like so:
escapekey
ampersand
letter-s
12
h
letter-k
H

Note the ending letter H is only upper case at the end of the sequence.

A good place to look for this is an old hp laserjet 4Si manual.

Ok! I hope you can skip this part and just use the commands from the banner page.


Steve

[TTr]

@Steve: All lp options are ignored when it comes to remote spoolers. Your "painful details" approach looks like the only option if the remote printer is on a windows server.

See this for more details
http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?&threadId=1343292

[Steve Post]

Good Call TTr.

That link is great. It has been a while. I must have modified the model script directly, making different printer queues for the different options. i.e. printers: normalA, landscapeA, compA, complandA.... names like that for printer "A".