Printing in linux

[null]

My experience with linux over the past year or so has just been on a machine that had no speakers, and no printer. So I am not too knowledgeble about sound under linux and printing under linux.

 

Now that I have my new machine (FC2) hooked up to a nice 3-pc speaker system (sounds good !) and to my H-P Deskjet 5550 printer, I want to start printing stuff.

 

I have printed a couple of things from the web (worked fine). However, I was dissapointed in the options presented to me (ie the printer driver) before printing. Under winblows, when I select Print... it would allow me to choose whatever quality I wanted. Generally, for crap off the web, I chose "Fast Draft" - its fast printing, and uses less ink. Also, I could select various features, such as 2-sided printing.

 

There is none of that offerred when I print on my linux box. So I went to linuxprinting.org and saw that there was a H-P driver for linux, so I downloaded it. Guess its sitting in my home folder now. What do I do with it, or where do I move it to? Does some kind of install need to be done, or does it just have to be moved somewhere? It is a .ppd file.

 

thanks

 

[moved from Everything Linux by spinynorman]

[null]

I figured out a little of it. I went into System Settings, then Printing and then it had an option to import PPD, so I did that. Now when I print, at least it has a couple of Properties to select. However, compared to my winblows driver, it ... well sucks.

 

I also downloaded the tar.gz hpijs driver and installed it, as per the instructions at linuxprinting.org.

 

Where is 2-sided printing, where are the quality choices ? Maybe it doesn't offer quality choices, because it auto senses the paper? but that's stupid. I can be using regular paper, and maybe I want to print cheaply "Fast Draft quality" or a little better "Everyday quality".

 

There must be another step to do. Linuxprinting.org has a lot of info, however it is kind of confusing (or I'm dumb). You click on various links and end up totally lost.

 

I think I also went thru the Set Up CUPS.

 

Is there something else to do?

Edited June 23, 2004 by null

[iphitus]

I have this printer, i configure it through the web interface, http://localhost:631/admin

 

though i seem to remember more config options too, i know i saw them somewhere in linux.

[null]

I think I did that localhost setup also - it was part of the instructions on setting up CUPS.

 

I don't print alot of stuff, so this isn't super important. But it would be nice to have a few options when printing. When I print manuals or tutorials and the like, I usually select Fast Draft Quality and also 2-sided printing - saves ink and saves paper.

[devries]

I have 3 places were I can change the printer options:

 

1- In Konquerer (KDE), type in the adressbar print:/

 

2- MCC

 

3- Cups.

 

I use mostly KDE to change the printersettings. For instance, if I wanted to change the print-quality, I would go to the driversettings tab, and change the PrintOut Mode. Same for doublesided printing(also on the general tab).

 

Anyway there are plenty of options to choose from (I have a HP printer too). I doubt the windowsdriver provides more.

[Michel]

I also have an hp-printer and I have quite some options. I haven't compared with windows .. where I mostly just printed normally. I even have an option for printing colro in draft .. yeah :).. I'm just exploring this stuff.

I suppose you can set defaults, but you can also configure this when you print something. kprinter has these options, ... I suppose gnome, ... too.

 

I really doubt if windows has more options. I think I have a lot more options with kprinter ... see if I can get some screenshots. This is not all functionality, but quite some (it's in Dutch):

 

 

(not: man, it's easy to take screenshots and post them on a server. I just made the screenshots with the keyboard-shortcut, then I paste them in konqueror(I use fish(ssh) to connect to the server using konqueror and just paste and it's put on the server as png. no program needed realy ease :-).)

 

Hope you get it working.