[SOLVED] How to identify a PostScript printer

[asarch]

Is there any way, besides its price, to identify if a printer is or is not a PostScript printer just like the CDR and the RW discs?

[DaijoubuKun]

check the manual, check the manu's website. Just what are you trying to do anyways?
If your trying to setup a printer and you don't have modules for it, set it up as 'raw' most every printer will work if you send it raw data.

[dkeav]

right check the documentation on the manufacturers website or included printed material

linuxprinting.org might have more useful information, rule of thumb is most laserjets tend to support postscript printing

[banzaikai]

>> dkeav:
>> rule of thumb is most laserjets tend to support postscript printing

Err. Not always. A manufacturer may have two models - one PS, the other PCL.

The best way to find out is to access the menu, and scroll through to see if you find things like "PS MENU", "JOB CONTROL", or "PROTOCOL SELECT". If it's an Apple, then it should automatically print out a test page on power-up, and you'll see "PostScript Level 2, 16MB Memory", etc. Most lasers will have a TEST PRINT menu, and you can then print the CONFIG/SETUP status page from there.

What make/model printer is this?

banzai "line feed" kai

[farslayer_]

Samsung actually lists their Laser printers as being linux compatible, they have both PCL and postscript versions.

You can get one of their low end laser printers for under $100.00 (ML-1740)
or a network enabled model that supports LPR for around $230.00 (ML-2251n)
Neither of these models is a postscript printer, The postscript models will run you considerably more..

I've always been a fan of the HP laser printers but the prices for the Samsung units is hard to beat (especially one WITH a network print server built in) I bought 4 of the small desktop units and 2 of the network enabled units for the office.


http://www.techonweb.com/products/productdetail.aspx?id=B27116

Networking - Print server - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet

System Requirements - Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft Windows 95/98, Microsoft Windows 2000, Red Hat Linux, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, TurboLinux, SuSe Linux, Caldera OpenLinux, Microsoft Windows XP, Linux Mandrake, Debian Linux, Slackware Linux


If you really MUST have a Postscript printer the ML-2152W has postscript3 and runs about $575.00 I could understand that requirement if you do desktop publishing as a profession.


**disclaimer** I do not work for samsung or tech-on-web. I'm just making a recommendation based on my previous experiences..

[Icarus]

Lets make a little correction to dkeav's post so it's more accurate...

rule of thumb is most laserjets tend to support postscript printing
to
rule of thumb is most HP laserjets tend to support postscript printing

And that is the HP LaserJet line, DeskJets are a completly seperate beast :p

[Parcival]

rule of thumb is most HP laserjets tend to support postscript printing

Lets make a little correction to Icarus' post so it's more accurate... :p

rule of thumb is most HP laserjets tend to support postscript printing except for the cheapest ones

because such a cheap model (laserjet 1160) is sitting right next to my desk. :D

[asarch]

Reading the section 9.3 Basic Setup (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/printing-intro-setup.html) of the FreeBSD Handbook (http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/) I found this:

Quotation from 9.3.1.1.1 Ports and Cables:

In general, Parallel interfaces usually offer just one-way communication (computer to printer) while serial and USB gives you two-way. Newer parallel ports (EPP and ECP) and printers can communicate in both directions under FreeBSD when a IEEE-1284-compliant cable is used.

Two-way communication to the printer over a parallel port is generally done in one of two ways. The first method uses a custom-built printer driver for FreeBSD that speaks the proprietary language used by the printer. This is common with inkjet printers and can be used for reporting ink levels and other status information. The second method is used when the printer supports PostScript®.That's the reason of my question DaijoubuKun.

Anyway, checking the HP's and Epson's web site I found many many Laser printers but none of them says anything about PostScript and I don't want to buy hardware that only works in Windows, I already have my modem, my chipset graphics, my sound card and my old inkjet printer, besides it seems to be so easy to work with one of this kind printers, especially for the man pages and ROFF.

[dkeav]

thats why its a rule of thumb not, rule of 100% read as literal fact ;)

[asarch]

Well, just to close this thread, accordingly with this other one (http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=143137), it seems that as long as a printer has "PostScript 3 Emulation" on its specifications there should be no problems to work with the PostScript® technology so, my main question of this thread is answered.

Thanks a lot, keep up the good working and happy hacking!!!

[farslayer_]

In my experience most laser printers do NOT support post script, unless they are high end laser printers (over $500.00 say) or you purchase the postscript upgrade if it's available for your particula model (in the case of my networked copy machines postscript support was an option that had to be purchased seperately.. )

of course if you get a printer with a built in lpr network interface then that communication is from the print server to your machine and the parallel / serial / usb interface is irrelavant. printer status is sent from the printserver to your computer via ethernet.

in my experience USB printers have been more hassle than they are worth, in Windows they are sometimes re-detected when you restart the machine and reinstalled and you end up with multiple instances in the printers window.. (printer, printer[1], printer[2], etc..) or they simply cease to work until they are uninstalled and them re-installed. imho a printe should accept data and print. nothing magical, nothing tricky, and since USB printers are that much hassle in windows I don't even want to consider using them in linux. I'll stick with my networked laser printers they just plain work.

but that's just my opinion.. :)