Help with custom page size support for non standard paper

BDAqua, thanks for the feedback, your responses were as I suspected.

I tried the Print / Paper Handling / Scale to fit paper size but no joy. If I use a custom paper size in portrait it comes out rotated by 90 degrees, if I use another (identical but rotated) custom paper in landscape it gets an error message.

I have had a look through Word (2004 for Mac Ver 11.5.3) and Printer setup and Print dialogue for an ability to rotate the output but no joy. No other settings spring to view that look like they would have any bearing on proceedings.

Regarding modifying the PPD, I have already looking at the innards of the file and while it is well structured it is still more complex that I really like. If nothing else comes to light it may be my last option to do a bit of brain surgery.

Q1: Have you ever had / heard of any success modifying PPD files ?

Q2: Does CUPS / postscript / ghostscript / PPD support rotation ?

Q3: How does the print dialogue support options like PPD based custom paper size and rotate ?

Thanks Hetsr

It was (very) late last night that I was working through this and from memory there were no issues with the Mac side of things, print preview etc all looked good. I didn't think to print to pdf but the preview always looked good, even to the point of clipping text if the Word page / margin settings didn't match the ppd settings.

The issues arose when I sent it to the printer, with custom paper in one orientation the text would come out rotated vertically (on screen it was horizontal on landscape paper), with the custom paper in the other orientation and rotated (still horizontal text on landscape paper on screen) it would error (like Unrecoverable error: configuration error stuff)

Matt, appreciate your input as well. I will not get a chance to do any additional testing until tomorrow but in response to your post:

Regarding orientation of the custom size. I tried both. The continuous form (labels) I need to print to are 4.0 inches / 288 Pt / 10.2 cm wide (across the continuous form) and 1.4 inches / 100.8 Pt / 3.6 cm tall with a 0.1 inch / 7 Pt / 2.5 mm gap between labels. I generated custom paper sizes in both orientations and then rotated them accordingly in the page set up to get landscape on the screen. Generally the 4 x 1.4 orientation worked best (but with the text rotated vertically) and the 1.4 x 4 gave error messages.

I assume this is what you mean by "are you sure you have the orientation of the sizes correct". I didn't know (custom) paper had to be defined with the longer side defined on the x axis but it kind of fell into place along the way (is that assumption correct ?).

Re setting the margins, yes I picked this up along the way as well (about 2 in the morning) but even with this correct I get similar results.

FYI I was successful at inserting the custom paper sizes in the PPD, it took some jiggery pokery (delete printers, sharing on / off, couple of restarts, etc) to get the new printer definition to reflect the ppd settings but they did take.

Testing on 10.4.11, similar results depending on the driver. Errors in one rotation, rotated text in the other, the closest I got (Oki Microline IBM compatible 9 Pin with doctored ppd to include the custom page size as a default) was the correct printing but the printer was picking up its form length from a printer config (set to 6 " for another form) and the minimum setting available was 3" where we need 1.5". I assume the driver was sending a form feed command rather than driving the platen a specific distance. At that late stage I was forced to abandon 10.4.11 attempts, I cant keep hitting my head against a brick wall. So like a zombie at 2 in the morning I moved to a 10.5 machine

Testing on 10.5.7, Tried both Oki 9-Pin Series 1.3 / Microline personality (no joy) and Epson 9-Pin Series 1.3 (this is a much better driver than 1.1) / Epson FX personality but not much joy with custom page sizes, but again once I imbedded the page size into the ppd some (but frustrating) luck. I can get it to respect the paper orientation and it prints well but I could not get the form length to work properly. At best over a print run of 7 labels it would creep up the label by about 0.1 inches / 2 mm. I tried modifying the ppd embedded page size by a couple of points but it did not seem to affect things (is there a possible ppd caching issue ?) and I tried a number of custom page sizes, modifying the page size each time but not affecting the print result (again is there some sort of ppd cache working against me ?). At 3:30 in the morning I pulled the pin, I can print the text but it is creeping up the labels as they print.

Re CUPS error logs on the 10.4 machine a couple of extracts are:
E 04/Jun/2009:23:50:44 +0930 get printerattrs: resource name '/printers/LP_ppd' no good!
A number of these, I suppose as I added (lots of) printers definitions

I 05/Jun/2009:00:29:27 +0930 Job 56 queued on 'Label_printer' by 'rhettner'.
I 05/Jun/2009:00:29:27 +0930 Started filter /usr/libexec/cups/filter/cgpdftoraster (PID 506) for job 56.
I 05/Jun/2009:00:29:27 +0930 Started filter /usr/libexec/cups/filter/rastertoepson (PID 507) for job 56.
I 05/Jun/2009:00:29:27 +0930 Started backend /usr/libexec/cups/backend/lpd (PID 508) for job 56.

I really appreciate your assistance, I am well past enjoying the challenge of this. I will complete the testing some time this weekend and let you know what I find, I will stick to 10.5 / Epson 9-Pin Series 1.3 from here.

Thanks again

Matt, BDAqua, all

I have progressed the 10.5 / Word / Epson Series 9-Pin / Epson FX testing and prepared a "shortish" report I will have to send to you (sorry its 4 Meg+ with images etc). If anyone else would like to have a look let me know.

Q: How can I forward / email / upload a zip archive of the printer test files (printertestfies.zip)

In short the Word / Epson Series 9-Pin / Epson FX has troubles dealing with the 1.5 inch form (height). Depending on the custom paper size it would jump from a 50 mm form length (when size set = 36 mm) to a 25 mm form length (when the size set = 30 mm). ie a non linear change.

After completing the testing / report and after reading the posts I also tried printing from File Maker Pro based PDF and Word based PDF documents and get the same result, 36 mm page height resulted in 50 mm at the printer.

Regarding which ppd am I working with, I start with the NOT private version (I didnt know where it was cached) and turn things on / off until it makes it way into the private space (very techy). I will be more careful now I understand the process / where it lives.

Regarding ppd changes I have focused on the Epson Service 9-Pin (generic) with the intention of trying to identify the root problem rather than having to many variables. Let me know if you want me to chase the Foomatic ppd Mods approach further.

If you could have a look at the CUPS error logs and let me know if it gives you any insights to what is happening I would be very appreciated, I have tried to interpret them and can follow about 5%, other than that it is Swahili to me. From there we can decide if its worth playing with the innards of the ppd files again. It would be really nice to understand what is happening as the combinations and permutations are to extensive for me to just make changes hoping to get around the problem.

Thanks again for your input

Matt, BDAqua, all

I am having trouble getting the report and log files to you (its to big to put in a post). I do not have access to an anonymous ftp server and cant find any open anonymous ftp servers or file transfer systems that does not require knowing the address of the intended recipient.

Would it be reasonable for me to put a modified version of my Email in a post (so it cant be understood by crawlers) and people who would like to see the report / CUPS error log files can sent me an email (at their personal discretion). Obviously I would treat the addresses with respect and ensure they are used for not other purpose than this transfer.

Let me know if you think this is a reasonable approach or is a security risk. Thanks again Hetsr

Matt, BDAqua, all

www.keepandshare.com is a good tool. I have created a share and uploaded the file (printertestfies.zip) as a public file (no login required). The URL is

http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1224116&da=y

You should be able to access the file from here. Again, if you could have a look and let me know your thoughts it would be appreciated.

Hetsr