S
OLVING
P
ROBLEMS
7.32
I can’t make a printer the
system default.
In some conditions, it may not be possible to change the
default queue. This happens with some variants of LPRng,
especially on recent RedHat systems that use the “printconf”
database of queues.
When using printconf, the /etc./printcap file is
automatically refreshed from the database of printers
managed by the system (usually through the “printtool”
command), and the queues in /etc./printcap.local are
appended to the resulting file. The default queue in LPRng is
defined as the first queue in /etc./printcap, therefore it is
not possible for the Linux Printer Package to change the
default when some queues have otherwise been defined using
printtool.
LPD systems identify the default queue as the one named “lp”.
Thus, if there is already a queue by this name, and if it
doesn’t have an alias, then you won’t be able to change the
default. To work around this, you can either delete the queue
or rename it by manually editing the /etc./printcap file.
The N-up setting does not
work correctly for some of
my documents.
The N-up feature is achieved through post-processing of the
PostScript data that is being sent to the printing system.
However, such post-processing can only be adequately
achieved if the PostScript data conforms to the Adobe
Document Structing Conventions. Problems may arise when
using N-up and other features relying on post-processing if
the document being printed isn’t compliant.
I am using BSD lpr
(Slackware, Debian, older
distributions) and some
options chosen in LLPR
don’t seem to take effect.
Legacy BSD lpr systems have a hard limitation on the length
of the option string that can be passed to the printing system.
As such, if you selected a number of different options, you
may have exceeded the length of the options and some of
your choices won’t be passed to the programs responsible for
implementing them. Try to select fewer options that deviate
from the defaults, to save on memory usage.
I am trying to print a
document in Landscape
mode, but it prints rotated
and cropped.
Most Unix applications that offer a Landscape orientation
option in their printing options will generate correct PostScript
code that should be printed as is. In that case, you need to
make sure that you leave the LLPR option set to its default
Portrait setting, to avoid unwanted rotations of the page that
would result in cropped output.
Some pages come out all
white (nothing is printed),
and I am using CUPS.
If the data being sent is in Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)
format, some earlier versions of CUPS (1.1.10 and before)
have a bug preventing them from being processed correctly.
When going through LLPR to print, the Printer Package will
work around this issue by converting the data to regular
PostScript. However, if your application bypasses LLPR and
feeds EPS data to CUPS, the document may not print
correctly.
Problem
Possible Cause and Solution