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Weird printing issue...

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  Weird printing issue... nimrod <nimrod@paralog.it> - 2022-04-08 00:30 +0200
    Re: Weird printing issue... Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> - 2022-04-08 02:20 +0200
      Re: Weird printing issue... nimrod <nimrod@paralog.it> - 2022-04-09 10:00 +0200
        Re: Weird printing issue... Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> - 2022-04-09 10:20 +0200
        Re: Weird printing issue... Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> - 2022-04-09 10:30 +0200
          Re: Weird printing issue... nimrod <nimrod@paralog.it> - 2022-04-10 22:50 +0200

#247034 — Weird printing issue...

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Hi,

I'm getting very strange, and ugly, prints with LibreOffice, Evince and
Atril. You can see what I mean in the linked screenshot below.

The "screen" image shows what I see when I open a PDF file, with
Evince, Atril, PDFmod and so on. The "printed" one shows the ugly
results when I print the same file. It seems the problem is the
monospace uppercase "A". But somewhere else the same horrible result
seems caused by a monospace lowercase "b" in the word "sub".

Something similar happens printing with LibreOffice Writer, but the
black stripes are much thinner and not apparently related with the "A"
character.

Definitely this is not a printer issue. My printer is an HP Laserjet
MFP M277 and every test page is perfect. Also, if I put the file on a
pendrive and plug it into the printer, it prints the file perfectly.

Last but not least, I can get perfect prints if I open the file with
Google Chrome and print it directly with Chrome.

All this happened quite suddenly about a month ago. I regularly update
all my Debian PC. All of them show this issue.

I can't really figure out what the hell is happening.

Any help will be very appreciated.

Best regards.

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#247036

On 2022-04-07 18:20, nimrod wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm getting very strange, and ugly, prints with LibreOffice, Evince and 
> Atril. You can see what I mean in the linked screenshot below.
> 
> The "screen <https://www.paralog.it/screen.png>" image shows what I see 
> when I open a PDF file, with Evince, Atril, PDFmod and so on. The 
> "printed <https://www.paralog.it/printed.png>" one shows the ugly 
> results when I print the same file. It seems the problem is the 
> monospace uppercase "A". But somewhere else the same horrible result 
> seems caused by a monospace lowercase "b" in the word "sub".

My guess not knowing anything about your setup is that the printing is 
happening using some print language postscript or the HP one (PCL), and 
the fonts are not communicated properly or missing on the printer, but 
computer thinks they are there, etc.

You can try some experiments. You can print from LibreOffice to a PDF, 
and then print that pdf from a pdf viewer and from chrome (since you can 
print from chrome without issue), and that way narrow down the issue.

The other thing to do is switch your print settings in CUPS or whatever 
the print system is from Postscript to PCL, or vice versa and see if 
that fixes things.

Bijan

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#247083

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On gio, 2022-04-07 at 20:09 -0400, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> On 2022-04-07 18:20, nimrod wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I'm getting very strange, and ugly, prints with LibreOffice, Evince
> > and 
> > Atril. You can see what I mean in the linked screenshot below.
> > 
> > The "screen <https://www.paralog.it/screen.png>" image shows what I
> > see 
> > when I open a PDF file, with Evince, Atril, PDFmod and so on. The 
> > "printed <https://www.paralog.it/printed.png>" one shows the ugly 
> > results when I print the same file. It seems the problem is the 
> > monospace uppercase "A". But somewhere else the same horrible
> > result 
> > seems caused by a monospace lowercase "b" in the word "sub".
> 
> My guess not knowing anything about your setup is that the printing
> is 
> happening using some print language postscript or the HP one (PCL),
> and 
> the fonts are not communicated properly or missing on the printer,
> but 
> computer thinks they are there, etc.
> 
> You can try some experiments. You can print from LibreOffice to a
> PDF, 
> and then print that pdf from a pdf viewer and from chrome (since you
> can 
> print from chrome without issue), and that way narrow down the issue.
> 
> The other thing to do is switch your print settings in CUPS or
> whatever 
> the print system is from Postscript to PCL, or vice versa and see if 
> that fixes things.
> 
> Bijan

Thanks for your advice. Unfortunately I couldn't find any setting about
Postscript, PCL or such in CUPS, HPLIP and the usual Gnome utilities to
manage printers.

The only spot where I see something like what you say is from
Libreoffice printer's details, File / Printer settings / Properties /
Device / Printer language type. The choice is currently "Automatic:
PDF", but I can choose also 3 level of Postscript or "Postscript: level
from driver".

I guess I should look also in some configuration file.

Best regards.

> 

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#247084

On 2022-04-09 03:52, nimrod wrote:
> Thanks for your advice. Unfortunately I couldn't find any setting about 
> Postscript, PCL or such in CUPS, HPLIP and the usual Gnome utilities to 
> manage printers.
> 
> The only spot where I see something like what you say is from 
> Libreoffice printer's details, File / Printer settings / Properties / 
> Device / Printer language type. The choice is currently "Automatic: 
> PDF", but I can choose also 3 level of Postscript or "Postscript: level 
> from driver".
> 
> I guess I should look also in some configuration file.
> 
> Best regards.

Hi,

It's been a while since I had to adjust printer settings in cups.

I just checked I think the procedure is:
open:
localhost:631

in a browser on the computer.

Go to the printers tab.

Click modify printer.

Keep the same path to the printer (usb or tcp or whatever)
then click next
keep the same name for the printer click next,
on the 3rd screen there will be a selection of drivers or filters you 
can choose

In my case there are a half dozen options that match my printer, also it 
is possible to supply a .ppd file there which specifies additional settings.

In my case I see some of the options mention PCL, others mention other 
languages or drivers.

I recommend you try the options that match the model number of your 
printer or look on the web for the latest ppd file for your printer.

For example I see on the following possible drivers for my printer:
https://www.openprinting.org/printer/Brother/Brother-HL-2170W

And I think all 5 (possibly with more variations are available on my 
system).

Bijan

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#247085

On 2022-04-09 03:52, nimrod wrote:
> Thanks for your advice. Unfortunately I couldn't find any setting about 
> Postscript, PCL or such in CUPS, HPLIP and the usual Gnome utilities to 
> manage printers.
> 
> The only spot where I see something like what you say is from 
> Libreoffice printer's details, File / Printer settings / Properties / 
> Device / Printer language type. The choice is currently "Automatic: 
> PDF", but I can choose also 3 level of Postscript or "Postscript: level 
> from driver".

So there are two stages here. One the app (libre office) converts the 
document to postscript or PDF. And two cups converts the PDF or 
postscript to some format your printer understands. It is possible that 
either of these steps fails.

This is why I recommended trying print to file (which default to pdf) 
and seeing if that pdf file prints properly if opened and printed via 
chrome. That way you can tell whether it is stage one or stage two above 
which has an issue. Also I think there must be a cups command line 
command to print pdf and ps files that you could try, if it works in 
chrome, to see if chrome does another level of processing that fixes things.

Bijan

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#247170

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On sab, 2022-04-09 at 04:28 -0400, Bijan Soleymani wrote:
> On 2022-04-09 03:52, nimrod wrote:
> > Thanks for your advice. Unfortunately I couldn't find any setting
> > about 
> > Postscript, PCL or such in CUPS, HPLIP and the usual Gnome
> > utilities to 
> > manage printers.
> > 
> > The only spot where I see something like what you say is from 
> > Libreoffice printer's details, File / Printer settings / Properties
> > / 
> > Device / Printer language type. The choice is currently "Automatic:
> > PDF", but I can choose also 3 level of Postscript or "Postscript:
> > level 
> > from driver".
> 
> So there are two stages here. One the app (libre office) converts the
> document to postscript or PDF. And two cups converts the PDF or 
> postscript to some format your printer understands. It is possible
> that 
> either of these steps fails.
> 
> This is why I recommended trying print to file (which default to pdf)
> and seeing if that pdf file prints properly if opened and printed via
> chrome. That way you can tell whether it is stage one or stage two
> above 
> which has an issue. Also I think there must be a cups command line 
> command to print pdf and ps files that you could try, if it works in 
> chrome, to see if chrome does another level of processing that fixes
> things.
> 
> Bijan
> 

Hi,

I tried on my usual laptop a very simple test: I have two version of my
printer, so I printed the "ugly" file on both, and only one shows the
black stripes.

Unfortunately, nor CUPS, nor Gnome printers app shows any option
dealing with PCL, but I found a reference to PCL in the PPD file of the
"good" one.

Strangely enough, the "bad" printer was installed by HP Toolbox
provided by the hplip package. I need to install a printer with that
package in order to use the scan function, which is extremely important
for me and is almost impossibile to use with the "good" printer.

Having several printers just to manage all the features of the hardware
printer is not very elegant, but as far as it works I could simply
rename the "bad" printer "scanner" and the "good" one "printer", just
to avoid confusion because now they have very long names which differ
just for the last characters.

Thank you again for your advice.

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