Robert Krawitz Gutenprint 5.0 User Guide
Gutenprint 5.0
User's Manual
Robert Krawitz
July 16, 2006
Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual
Copyright © 2000-2006 Robert Krawitz
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation
with no invariant sections, no Front-Cover texts, and no Back-Cover texts.
Gutenprint 5.0 is licensed in its entirety under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The
CUPS code (in src/cups) is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2; the
balance of the code is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
EPSON, ESC/P, and Stylus are registered trademarks of Seiko Epson Corp. ESC/P2 is a trademark of
Seiko Epson Corp. All other product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their
vendors.
2 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
Table of Contents
1) Introduction............................................................................................................................................5
1.1) What is Gutenprint?.......................................................................................................................5
1.2) History of Gutenprint.....................................................................................................................5
1.2.1) The early years: Gimp-Print 3.x and 4.0................................................................................5
1.2.2) Gimp-Print 4.2........................................................................................................................6
1.2.3) Gimp-Print Becomes Gutenprint............................................................................................7
1.3) Note to Packagers and Distributors................................................................................................8
2) General Requirements............................................................................................................................9
3) Installation...........................................................................................................................................10
3.1) Overview......................................................................................................................................10
3.2) Core Driver Library.....................................................................................................................12
3.3) CUPS............................................................................................................................................12
3.4) Foomatic.......................................................................................................................................17
3.5) The GIMP....................................................................................................................................18
3.6) escputil.........................................................................................................................................19
3.7) Other Packages.............................................................................................................................19
4) Getting Started.....................................................................................................................................21
4.1) Printer Installation........................................................................................................................21
4.1.1) CUPS....................................................................................................................................21
4.1.2) Foomatic...............................................................................................................................22
4.1.3) The GIMP.............................................................................................................................24
4.2) Configuring Printer Options.........................................................................................................27
4.3) Using escputil...............................................................................................................................30
5) Solving Problems.................................................................................................................................32
6) Release Notes.......................................................................................................................................33
6.1) Overall Changes Between Gimp-Print 4.2 and Gutenprint 5.0....................................................33
6.1.1) General User-Visible Changes.............................................................................................33
6.1.2) New Functionality................................................................................................................34
6.1.3) Changes to the Enhanced Print Plugin for The GIMP.........................................................36
6.1.4) Changes to the CUPS Interface............................................................................................37
6.1.5) Changes to the Ghostscript Driver.......................................................................................38
6.1.6) Changes to Foomatic Data Generation.................................................................................38
6.1.7) Quality Improvements..........................................................................................................39
6.1.8) Architectural Changes..........................................................................................................40
6.2) Exceptions and Workarounds......................................................................................................42
6.2.1) General Issues.......................................................................................................................42
6.2.2) Build/Installation Issues.......................................................................................................43
6.2.2.1) Incorrect Generation of CUPS PPD Files.....................................................................43
6.2.2.2) CUPS PPD Files are Not Translated............................................................................44
6.2.2.3) Issues with Building and Installing Foomatic Data......................................................46
6.2.2.4) Problems Building escputil...........................................................................................47
6.2.2.5) Problems Building the Print plugin for the GIMP........................................................48
6.3) Printer-Specific Notes..................................................................................................................48
7) List of Supported Printers....................................................................................................................51
8) List of Supported Options....................................................................................................................67
8.1) Printer Options.............................................................................................................................67
8.1.1) Basic Printer Options............................................................................................................67
3 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
8.1.2) Advanced Printer Options....................................................................................................68
8.1.3) Specialized Printer Options..................................................................................................69
8.2) Output Controls............................................................................................................................70
8.2.1) Basic Output Controls..........................................................................................................70
8.2.2) Basic Output Adjustments....................................................................................................73
8.2.3) Advanced Output Adjustments............................................................................................74
8.2.4) Output Density (Ink Quantity) Controls...............................................................................75
8.2.5) Gray Balance Controls.........................................................................................................76
8.2.6) Output Gamma Controls......................................................................................................76
8.3) Specialized Adjustments..............................................................................................................77
8.3.1) Gray Generation Controls....................................................................................................77
8.3.2) Output Linearization Controls..............................................................................................78
8.3.3) Advanced Color Correction Curves.....................................................................................79
8.3.4) Transition Controls...............................................................................................................80
8.3.5) Miscellaneous Output Controls............................................................................................81
8.4) Foomatic-Only Options................................................................................................................81
8.5) CUPS-Only Options.....................................................................................................................82
9) GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE................................................................................................83
9.1) Preamble.......................................................................................................................................83
9.2) TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION....84
9.3) END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS......................................................................................87
10) GNU Free Documentation License....................................................................................................88
4 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
1) Introduction
1.1) What is Gutenprint?
Gutenprint, formerly named Gimp-Print, is a suite of printer drivers that may be used with most
common UNIX and Linux print spooling systems, including CUPS, lpr, LPRng, or others. These
drivers provide high quality printing for UNIX (including Macintosh OS X 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4) and
Linux systems that in many cases equal or exceed proprietary vendor-supplied drivers in quality and
functionality, and can be used for demanding printing tasks requiring flexibility and high quality. This
software package includes an enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP that replaces the plugin packaged
with the GIMP, and Ghostscript and CUPS drivers, as well as Foomatic data supporting the Ghostscript
driver.
Gutenprint has been renamed in order to clearly distinguish it from the GIMP. While this package
started out as the original Print plugin for the GIMP, it has expanded into a collection of general
purpose printer drivers, and the new, enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP is now only a small part of
the package. Furthermore, the name Gutenprint recognizes Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the
movable type printing press. Finally, the word guten is the German word for good.
Gutenprint 5.0 incorporates extensive feedback from the beta and release candidate programs. It has
been completely revised since the very popular Gimp-Print 4.2 series, and you should read this manual
carefully.
Gutenprint supports only the printer part of multi-function devices (devices that typically include
scanning, copying, and fax capabilities).
We recommend that all users who wish to use this package for general purpose printing use either
CUPS or, if they use another printing system or no spooler at all, use Foomatic with the Ghostscript
driver (both described below), rather than integrating the Ghostscript driver with self-made scripts or
even manually typing in Ghostscript command lines. It is much simpler to manage with CUPS or
Foomatic and its PPDs. CUPS provides an excellent web-based interface for easy printer
administration, and all CUPS-enabled applications (OpenOffice.org, all KDE apps, etc.) and printing
dialogs (kprinter, xpp, etc.) show all the options in easy to use GUIs. Please visit http://www.cups.org/
for information on downloading and installing CUPS.
Gutenprint currently supports over 700 printer models.
1.2) History of Gutenprint
1.2.1) The early years: Gimp-Print 3.x and 4.0
The predecessor to this software package (the original Print plugin for the GIMP) was first written by
Michael Sweet of Easy Software Products and initially worked only as a print plugin to the GIMP
(GNU Image Manipulation Program). In the summer of 1999, I purchased an Epson Stylus Photo EX
printer to feed my photography hobby. Finding no existing printer drivers, I adapted Mike's GIMP Print
plugin to this six-color printer, and by the end of the year released version 3.0 of the Gimp-Print
software, which was included in version 1.1 of the GIMP. The intention was for this to be the stable
plugin in version 1.2 of the GIMP while development of the GIMP Print plugin continued for later
release.
5 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
I put the Gimp-Print development tree on SourceForge starting with version 3.1, and quickly found a
group of like-minded people who wanted to print high quality output on inexpensive inkjet printers.
One of the main goals, which was not expected to be met until late in the version 3.1 cycle, was to
write a Ghostscript driver so that printing would not be restricted to the GIMP. Much to my surprise,
someone wrote one within days! That gave me my first clue that the project was destined for greater
things.
In July 2000, barely a year after I bought my Epson Stylus Photo EX, I was invited to the Linux
Printing Summit hosted by VA Linux Systems. In preparation for that, I spent long hours printing out
test images. I went back to the Gimp-Print version 3.0.9 release, which seemed like such an advance at
the time, and was floored at how far the project had come in four months! Output that had been
considered impressive with using six colors was put to shame by four color output. That should give
you an idea what modern printing technology can do. It also illustrates what a group of committed
people can do.
I came away from the Printing Summit with a lot of new ideas. Other people were busy adding new
features and support for more printers, and in November 2000, we released Gimp-Print version 4.0, the
culmination of 9 months of work by the team. The quality was already tremendously improved over
what the software could do at the Printing Summit.
I knew at the time that Gimp-Print 4.0 had some serious limitations that would restrict what could be
done. In particular, its color model was very restricted (it could only handle RGB and CMYK printers,
possibly with light magenta and light yellow inks) and the code was still closely tied in with the Print
plugin for the GIMP. I wanted to devise a new architecture for the next release that would allow us to
take advantage of more printer capabilities and support improved color generation and dithering, but
progress was slow. It took us a few months to fully stabilize Gimp-Print 4.0, and it became clear that
our more ambitious goals weren't going to be achieved quickly. We decided to do an interim stable
release based on improvements to the 4.0 codebase that would give us some breathing space while we
worked on a new architecture.
1.2.2) Gimp-Print 4.2
The interim stable release was to become Gimp-Print 4.2. We used the numbering scheme adopted by
the Linux kernel team, whereby stable releases were denoted by even numbers in the minor release (the
“2” in 4.2) while odd numbers denoted unstable development releases. We were fortunate that Roger
Leigh joined the project shortly after the Gimp-Print 4.0 release. Roger is a superb architect, and he
quickly whipped the somewhat disorganized code base into shape. We spent most of 2001 cleaning up
the code base, adding support for CUPS (by now, Mike Sweet had joined the project) and the nascent
Foomatic metadata management project, improving the color generation and dithering code, and adding
support for more printers. A lot of our work went into automatically generating the CUPS PPD files
and Foomatic data; the project already supported about 200 printers with a large number of options,
and writing all of this by hand would be tedious, error-prone, and unmaintainable. We spent most of the
fall working on documentation, cleaning up bugs, and the like, and released Gimp-Print 4.2.0 in late
November.
Anticipating that the next major release of Gimp-Print would be a more extensive project, we decided
to branch the 4.2 release, and work on the next release (which would be either 4.4 or 5.0, depending
upon how extensive the changes would be) while also releasing updates to 4.2. This would allow us to
fix bugs and add new printers and perhaps minor new capabilities for users wanting a stable Gimp-Print
release while making much more radical changes in preparation for the next release. We started work
6 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
on Gimp-Print 4.3 (the development series that would eventually mature into the next stable release
series) around the beginning of 2002.
The Gimp-Print 4.2 release proved to be far more successful than we ever imagined. First of all, it was
wonderfully stable from the outset; it was to be over 4 months before we needed to release an update.
We added one major new feature shortly after release, support for the new Ghostscript driver
architecture based on HP's HPIJS driver. This driver architecture allowed drivers to be compiled
independently of Ghostscript (previously drivers had to be compiled into Ghostscript, a somewhat
daunting project for end users). We continued to add more printers, dither algorithms, and so forth, all
without breaking compatibility with the initial 4.2.0 release.
2002 was a very exciting year for Gimp-Print. Apple had released OS X for the Macintosh and was
planning to rely on a lot of free/open source software for key functions of the OS. In particular from
our standpoint, many vendors had not updated printer drivers for OS X, and many did not want to
update their drivers for older printers. Since OS X had settled on CUPS as the core of its printing
system from 10.2 on, and Gimp-Print had full support for CUPS, the fit was very obvious and GimpPrint wound up becoming part of the OS X printing system. We were very busy that year preparing for
release of Gimp-Print for OS X. This was done in 4.2.2, which we released almost 9 months after the
initial 4.2.0 release (which says something about the stability of Gimp-Print 4.2). This release created a
lot of excitement in the OS X world and for us, and we did three more releases in quick succession
culminating with Gimp-Print 4.2.5 in early 2003.
I was expecting that there would be one more release of Gimp-Print 4.2 that would primarily contain
bug fixes and incremental support for new printers. By 2003, many of the printers being released had
capabilities beyond what Gimp-Print 4.2 could support. I also expected that we would be ready to
release Gimp-Print 4.4 or 5.0 within a year, so there wouldn't be a need for anything more. We released
Gimp-Print 4.2.6 in early 2004. However, there were still some problems with that release, and we did
one more release (4.2.7) in July 2004. This wound up being the final Gimp-Print 4.2 release.
1.2.3) Gimp-Print Becomes Gutenprint
In the meantime, work on Gimp-Print 4.3 was progressing, albeit rather slowly. We wanted to support
the newest generation printers with tiny droplets, very high resolutions, and extra colors, in addition to
adding color management and the possibility of supporting many more printer capabilities beyond the
fixed set offered in Gimp-Print 4.2. In part due to all of the maintenance work on 4.2, and in part due to
the natural tendency of people to move on to other projects, we made only slow progress on Gimp-Print
4.3. It was clear that we weren't going to release a next generation of Gimp-Print in 2002 or early 2003
as we hoped. However, the success of Gimp-Print 4.2 took some of the pressure off, because 4.2 was
proving to be highly maintainable. We wanted the next generation of Gimp-Print to be more than just
another incremental advance.
The core of the new parameter-based API, and hence of Gimp-Print 4.3, was in place by early 2003. By
this time, 4.2 was slowing down, and work on our development tree was starting to pick up. We
decided that the architectural and user experience changes were sufficient to name the next release 5.0,
and I put together a plan for going to alpha in July and releasing 5.0 in November 2003. That was not
to be.
We were doing new releases of 4.3 for intrepid adventurers every few weeks, with extensive changes
continuing, and it was only in December that we finally felt ready to move to 5.0 alpha, which we
released in January 2004. Progress was slow; there were still quite a few API changes we felt we
needed to make, and there were still serious quality problems with many printers. In addition, new
7 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
printers were being shipped with additional inks that we couldn't handle very well. We also had to
adapt to other changes, such as GIMP 2.0 based on GTK+ 2.0, which was not backward compatible
with GTK+/GIMP 1.2. We released Gimp-Print 5.0 beta in June with many improvements, but there
were still quite a few things on our release checklist that weren't done.
Based on the popularity of Gimp-Print 4.2, we decided that it was very important that Gimp-Print 5.0
not interfere with the use of Gimp-Print 4.2. It was clear that the changes in 5.0 were too extensive to
maintain compatibility in any useful way with 4.2, and a lot of people had incorporated 4.2 into their
daily work, so we thought long and hard about how to make the CUPS and Foomatic interfaces not
interfere with Gimp-Print 4.2.
It also became apparent that our ties to the GIMP had all but vanished by this point. We had actually
squeezed all of the GIMP-related code out into a very small stub that was actually smaller than the
original GIMP plugin! Furthermore, the Gimp-Print name was causing a lot of confusion among users;
OS X users in parrticular were referring to Gimp-Print as “Gimp”. We settled on the name Gutenprint,
and renamed the project in the fall of 2004.
We were still in beta; progress was slow at this point, but we weren't satisfied with the results. We
finally did our first release candidate in September 2005, over a year after we entered beta. We
continued to move toward 5.0 release, but there was still a lot of cleanup work that needed to be done:
printers needed to be retuned, PPD files needed to be validated, we needed to incorporate feedback
from users that we only really started to get from the release candidates. There were a number of
serious but subtle bugs with the CUPS and Foomatic interfaces that needed to be fixed in order to have
a useful 5.0 public release.
In April 2006 I attended my second printing summit, this one hosted by Lanier, and spent three days
working with many key players in the Linux/UNIX printing world. This was very productive; I got a
lot of useful feedback on various issues and was able to raise issues important to Gutenprint. We
released the third release candidate in May 2006, with a tremendous number of bug fixes and
improvements, and this finally felt like a real release candidate. We received extensive feedback from
this release, and fixed other problems and made some other changes to improve quality.
Unfortunately, we didn't accomplish all of our goals for Gutenprint 5.0. We have not incorporated true
color management; our Postscript output driver in the GIMP plugin (and indeed, the GIMP plugin
itself) is still in need of a rewrite; the drivers other than the Epson driver haven't been fully updated to
take advantage of the capabilities of Gutenprint 5.0. However, these changes can be made later, either
in later 5.0 releases or in the next release series. Gutenprint is not “finished” and never will be!
1.3) Note to Packagers and Distributors
We recommend that all packagers of Gutenprint, such as Linux distribution vendors, read this
manual carefully. There are important notes throughout. Please contact us via email at gimp-
print-devel@lists.sourceforge.net if you have any questions. We request that vendors notify us of
private patches that they plan to distribute.
8 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
2) General Requirements
Gutenprint will run on any reasonably modern computer running Linux, Macintosh OS X (10.2 or
above), Solaris, or any other UNIX-like operating system. If you plan to compile this package from
source, you will also need an ANSI C compiler, such as gcc (recommended), and GNU Make. A
compiler is not required if you are installing a pre-compiled package.
Processor and memory requirements vary depending upon the printer and runtime options selected; it is
suggested that you have at least 64 MB of memory for general purpose printing, 256 MB or more for
high quality printing on a good printer, and 1 GB or more for large format printing at high resolution.
You should have at least 50 MB of free disk space to compile and install Gutenprint. Disk space
requirements for printing will vary depending upon how you use Gutenprint, but are generally modest
except as noted below. We recommend a processor speed of at least 300 MHz. Fast printers may
require a faster processor to achieve maximum printing speed.
For general use, you should have the Common UNIX Printing System, CUPS (version 1.1.15 or above)
or Foomatic (2.0 or above) installed. Please read the rest of the release notes, in particular the
Exceptions and Workarounds, for full details on installation, as there is important information to be
aware of. CUPS is the printing system used on Macintosh OS X 10.2 and above, and many other
systems use it. The combination of CUPS and Gutenprint provides a flexible, general purpose printing
system capable of producing the highest quality output with any of the printers supported by this
package. We strongly recommend using CUPS with Gutenprint as a general-purpose printing solution.
The enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP requires either the GIMP 2.0 or above, or 1.2.3 or above on
the 1.2 line (1.2.5 is recommended). This plugin will work with any printing system, and offers a
comprehensive user interface to control all aspects of the printing process. If you are printing
photographs in large format from the GIMP at very high resolution, disk space requirements may be
substantial, and we recommend at least 2 GB of free disk space for that purpose.
The Ghostscript driver requires GNU Ghostscript 6.53 or higher, ESP Ghostscript 7.05 or higher, or
AFPL Ghostscript 7.04 or higher. It uses the IJS package included with these versions of Ghostscript
to create a driver that may be built much more easily than traditional Ghostscript drivers. This driver
should be used in conjunction with Foomatic to configure printers.
Users of Macintosh OS X 10.2 (Jaguar), 10.3 (Panther), and 10.4 (Tiger) can use this package, as the
printing system is based on CUPS. For ease of installation, a pre-built package with installer is
normally supplied a few days after the release of the source package. We strongly recommend that OS
X users use the pre-built package rather than attempt to build it themselves.
Note: This package will not work with any version of OS X 10.0 and 10.1 (such as 10.1.5). The
printing system used with these versions of OS X is not compatible with Gutenprint. OS X 10.2 and
above use CUPS as the basis of the printing system, which is compatible with Gutenprint.
9 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
3) Installation
This section is provided for distributors people installing the package from source. If you are installing
from a pre-compiled package (such as the Macintosh OS X package, or a package provided by your
distribution vendor), you may skip this section. We strongly urge all distributors of the Gutenprint
package, such as Linux distribution vendors, to read this information carefully!
Installing packages from source requires some level of system administration skills along with
superuser privileges. Superuser privilege allows you to perform actions that may be damaging to your
system. If you are not comfortable with the material discussed here and in the release notes, we
recommend that you not attempt to install this package from source.
Before beginning, please read the release notes carefully for any updates.
3.1) Overview
Gutenprint includes the following primary components:
● The core driver library (required for everything else)
● A CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) driver
● An enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP
● Support for the Foomatic spooler configuration system
● A Ghostscript driver using the IJS plugin facility
● A command-line utility to administer and maintain Epson printers
This package requires the use of GNU Make to compile. On systems with both GNU make and
another make installed, GNU make may be named gmake or gnumake. BSD users in particular must
take care to use gmake.
The general procedure to build Gutenprint is as follows:
./configure [options]
make
make install
The configure script, which must be run before doing anything else, controls which of these
components are built along with any options desired. This script determines what software is installed
on your system and what components will be compatible with it, and prepares the package to be built
and installed. If the script emits any warnings or errors, please be certain that you understand them
before proceeding.
After the configure script has completed its work, it will print a summary of its choices. Please ensure
that it is correct before proceeding, and save it in case you have any problems. If you request
assistance from the Gutenprint development team, you will be asked to provide this report. The
summary looks like this:
10 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
Configuration Summary:
------------- --------
If you have any problems, please report the information below to
gimp-print-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
================================================================
Release: gutenprint 5.0.0 generated on 01 Jul 2006
Features:
Build CUPS: yes, installing in /usr
Build CUPS PPD files: yes
Build translated CUPS PPD files: no
Build simplified CUPS PPD files: no
Generate PS level 3 CUPS PPD files: yes
Install CUPS PPD files at top level: no
Build genppd statically: yes
Build Ghostscript IJS driver: yes
Build Foomatic data: yes
Build Foomatic 3.x data: yes
Build enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP: yes
Build GIMP 1.2 plugin: yes
Build GIMP 2.x plugin: yes
GIMP 2.x plugin will be named: print
Install plugin(s) in home directory: no
Build EPSON Stylus utility: yes
Build test programs: yes
Build testpattern generator: yes
Installation summary:
Installation prefix: /usr/local
Data directory: /usr/local/share/gutenprint
Library directory: /usr/local/lib/gutenprint
XML data directory: /usr/local/share/gutenprint/5.0.0/xml
Module directory: /usr/local/lib/gutenprint/5.0.0/modules
Install user guide: yes
Install sample images: yes
General configuration:
Compiler options: -g -O2 -Wall -Wcast-align -Wstrictprototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Wwrite-strings
-Werror-implicit-function-declaration -Winline -finline-limit=1048576 -pedantic -Waggre
gate-return -Wcast-qual -Wshadow -Wredundant-decls
Build static libraries: yes
Build shared libraries: no
Maintainer mode: yes
Generate profiling information: no
Generate debugging symbols: no
Use modules: static
Use readline libraries: yes, extra arguments: -lncurses
================================================================
The CUPS, GIMP, Foomatic, and Ghostscript components require that the appropriate packages be
installed on your system. Many distribution vendors separate packages into runtime and development
packages. The development packages are required in order to successfully compile Gutenprint. In
many cases the configure script cannot detect whether these development packages are installed, in
which case you will get an error during compilation. Also note that it is necessary for the versions of
the development packages to match exactly the versions of the runtime packages they are related to.
11 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
3.2) Core Driver Library
The core driver library, which is always built, contains all of the printer drivers comprising the
Gutenprint package. When the package is built, it consists of a core library (libgutenprint), a set of
XML files, and depending upon the options selected, additional libraries containing the drivers for each
family of printers.
By default dynamically loadable modules (plugins) will be built for the family drivers, and loaded at
run-time if your operating system supports it. If you experience problems,
--with-modules=dlopen or --with-modules=ltdl may be used to select the module
loading method (dlopen is the default, but GNU libltdl is more portable), or
--with-modules=static or --without-modules disables them. If you wish to compile
Gutenprint entirely statically (with no use of shared libraries), you may use the option
--disable-shared.
Notes to Packagers
1. You may wish to create a development package containing header files and linkable libraries
separate from the runtime package. There are a few third party applications that link against
Gutenprint.
2. Gutenprint permits installation of Gimp-Print 4.2 alongside Gutenprint 5.0, and in the future
will permit concurrent installation of different stable versions of Gutenprint with different
minor version numbers. Gutenprint uses the old-style kernel numbering system, whereby even
numbered minor versions are stable (4.2, 5.0, 5.2) and odd numbered minor versions are
development (4.3, 5.1). Therefore, you should consider allowing Gutenprint 5.0 and GimpPrint 4.2 to be installed concurrently.
3.3) CUPS
Gutenprint may be used as a driver under CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System), if your system uses
that spooler. Full description of CUPS is beyond the scope of this README file; full information may
be found at http://www.cups.org. Gutenprint 5.0 requires CUPS 1.1.9 or higher. We recommend use
of 1.1.15 or above; that release of CUPS fixes some important bugs. Gutenprint supports CUPS 1.2,
but at this time does not take advantage of the new features of that release.
Gutenprint will normally detect the presence of CUPS on your system and will attempt to build the
CUPS driver if it finds CUPS installed. If your distribution separates the CUPS installation into
development and runtime packages, you must install the CUPS development package (cups-devel or
similar). You may need to install other development packages depending upon how your distribution
has built CUPS. The list of packages varies, but commonly development packages for TIFF
(libtiff-devel), JPEG (jpeg-devel or libjpeg-devel), PNG (libpng-devel) and
OpenSSL (openssl-devel) will be required. Failure to install these packages will lead to errors
when the package is compiled.
Installing the CUPS driver for Gutenprint 5.0 will not interfere with your ability to continue using the
Gimp-Print 4.2 CUPS driver.
The Gutenprint CUPS driver consists of the following components:
12 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
● The core Gutenprint CUPS driver, rastertogutenprint.5.0. This is a CUPS filter that
converts CUPS raster data into printer-specific data. This is most commonly installed in
/usr/lib/cups/filter.
● Back ends for driving Canon and Epson printers, named canon and epson. These provide
the ability to get information from the printer for CUPS to use, and are normally installed in
/usr/lib/cups/backend. Additional utilities to send certain commands to these printers
are installed as commandtocanon and commandtoepson; they are installed in
/usr/lib/cups/filter.
● One or more sets of PPD files describing all of the printers supported by Gutenprint. These are
normally installed in /usr/share/cups/model/gutenprint. These PPD files can
only be used by the precise version of Gutenprint that they were built with; for example, it is
not possible to use PPD files from Gutenprint 5.0.0 with Gutenprint 5.0.1.
● A utility to update PPD files from an earlier release of Gutenprint, cups-
genppdupdate.5.0. This utility may be used to update PPD files generated by earlier
versions of Gutenprint starting from 4.3.21. This is normally installed in /usr/sbin. This
utility cannot update PPD files from Gimp-Print 4.2.
● A utility to generate PPD files, cups-genppd.5.0. Normally this is only required when the
package is built. This is normally installed in /usr/sbin.
● A utility to permit additional color calibration for Gutenprint-supported printers,
cups-calibrate. This is normally installed in /usr/bin.
Warning: With certain versions of CUPS and in certain non-default configurations, if a new version of
Gutenprint is installed over an existing version genppd will create PPD files based on the older
version of Gutenprint rather than the newer version. This will happen if all of the following are
true:
1. The cups-config provided by the CUPS driver adds -Wl,rpath=/usr/lib. This is done
by some versions of CUPS reportedly because in some cases the runtime linker does not pick
up libraries out of /usr/lib. This can be checked by running
cups-config --libs --ldflags
and inspecting the output for any mention of rpath, RPATH, RUN_PATH, or the like. This
is controlled by the CUPS installation on your system.
2. There is presently a version of Gutenprint installed in /usr (--prefix=/usr) rather than
/usr/local or the like. The default location of Gutenprint installation is in
/usr/local, but system vendors typically install Gutenprint in /usr.
3. Gutenprint is built dynamically only (--disable-static or
--disable-static-genppd). This is not a default, and requires the explicit use of
these options on the Gutenprint configure command line. Therefore, if you build
Gutenprint normally you should not be vulnerable to this problem.
Note that in general if you install CUPS into a non-standard location, and install Gutenprint into the
same location, this problem can surface. For example, if you choose to install CUPS in
13 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
/usr/local and Gutenprint in /usr/local you are vulnerable to this. However, it is not
standard practice to install CUPS anywhere but /usr.
In this case, the run path embedded in the genppd executable points to the version of Gutenprint
installed in /usr/lib. This run path overrides any attempt by libtool to look in the build
directory. The result is that cups-genppd and rastertogutenprint are run against the
older version of Gutenprint. If the new version contains additional features (more printers, changes
to printer options, etc.) they will not be available.
This bug is difficult to detect in a normal build. It normally does not cause an error to happen
during build unless there is an API change from the version installed and the version being built; the
only failure is frequently that some PPD files may not be built or may be built with missing options.
Due to the PPD version checking introduced in this release, the behavior might manifest itself as a
runtime error. It is also possible that there will be no error at all other than the older version of
Gutenprint being used, with the result that new features and bug fixes are not available.
If you wish to use only shared libraries, do not wish to build static libraries at all, and are vulnerable
to this issue (because cups-config --ldflags sets the run path), there are three workarounds
available:
1. Build and install Gutenprint into /usr (rather than /usr/local) and then rebuild
Gutenprint from scratch. This will install the correct libgutenprint.so in /usr/lib, and in
the rebuild genppd will be run against the correct library.
2. Remove the old version of Gutenprint prior to building the new version of Gutenprint. The
important files to remove are anything named /usr/lib/libgutenprint*.
3. Edit cups-config to remove the reference to the run path.
Note: when you run make install, some non-fatal errors will be displayed:
14 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
make[4]: Entering directory `/home/rlk/sandbox/print-4.3/src/cups'
Expect a number of "rmdir: Directory not empty" warnings
These messages are harmless and should be ignored.
rmdir /usr/share/cups/model/gutenprint/5.0/
rmdir: `/usr/share/cups/model/gutenprint/5.0/': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir /usr/share/cups
rmdir: `/usr/share/cups': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir /usr/lib/cups/backend
rmdir: `/usr/lib/cups/backend': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir /usr/lib/cups/filter
rmdir: `/usr/lib/cups/filter': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir /usr/bin
rmdir: `/usr/bin': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir /usr/lib/cups
rmdir: `/usr/lib/cups': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir /etc/cups
rmdir: `/etc/cups': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir `dirname /usr/share/cups`
rmdir: `/usr/share': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir `dirname /usr/lib/cups`
rmdir: `/usr/lib': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
rmdir `dirname /etc/cups`
rmdir: `/etc': Directory not empty
make[4]: [install-data-hook] Error 1 (ignored)
These errors are harmless and can be safely ignored.
Following installation of the package with make install, you must restart CUPS to permit CUPS
to see the new PPD files. The exact command to restart CUPS varies; it is typically something like
/etc/init.d/cups, /etc/software/init.d/cups, /etc/rc.d/cups,
/usr/sbin/rccups, or even /etc/rc.d/init.d/cups. Your system may have a different
way to restart the CUPS server. OS X, for example, uses the following command:
sudo /System/Library/StartupItems/PrintingServices/PrintingServices.sh restart
You may optionally choose to update your existing PPD files using the command
cups-genppdupdate.5.0, after which you should restart CUPS as described above. We strongly
recommend use of this update procedure. This script will automatically update Gutenprint PPD files
from earlier versions. This script will only update PPD files from earlier versions of Gutenprint; it will
not update Gimp-Print 4.2 PPD files. However, you may install Gutenprint 5.0 alongside Gimp-Print
4.2, and use both Gimp-Print 4.2 and Gutenprint 5.0 drivers concurrently in separate printer queues.
Therefore, you need not convert a workflow based on Gimp-Print 4.2 right away, but can gradually
convert or even permanently use both drivers for different printer queues.
The following options to configure are available for compiling the Gutenprint driver for CUPS:
15 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
--disable-translated-cups-ppds
By default, PPD files for all languages available in Gutenprint are created. If this option is used,
only the default (US-English) PPD files are created. Distributors may wish to package up the PPD
files separately for each language.
Some systems may not build the translated PPD files correctly, in which case all of the PPD files
will be in English. If this is the case on your system, you should use
--disable-translated-cups-ppds to avoid having many duplicate PPD files.
--enable-simplified-cups-ppds
Gutenprint 5.0 offers an option of creating simplified PPD files (containing only basic options and
standard paper sizes) in addition to PPD files offering all available options (including all color
correction options). If this option is used, both the simplified and standard PPD files are created. If
--enable-simplified-cups-ppds=only is specified, then only the simplified PPD files
are built.
--disable-cups-level3-ppds
By default, the Gutenprint PPD files are configured for PostScript Level 3. If this option is used,
Level 2 PPD files are created. This may be useful if you are using a version of CUPS older than
1.1.15. It is normally not necessary to use this explicitly, as the configure script detects the version
of CUPS in use and selects the appropriate PostScript level automatically.
--disable-cups-ppds-at-top-level
Normally, the PPD files are placed in /usr/share/cups/model/gutenprint/5.0. If this
option is used, the PPD files are placed in /usr/share/cups/model. There is normally no
good reason to use this option.
--disable-static-genppd
Build genppd and rastertogutenprint dynamically linked rather than statically linked.
Warning: Use of this option may lead to failure during build or installation, or incorrect installation,
as described above. It is strongly recommended that you not use this option unless you are certain
that you understand the problem and how to work around it.
Notes to Packagers
● We recommend that your installation package run cups-genppdupdate.5.0 and restart
CUPS as part of the installation process.
● All files and directories with versioned names (e. g. cups-genppdupdate,
rastertogutenprint, the PPD files) may be installed concurrently with other versions of
Gimp-Print and Gutenprint as described above. Other executables (such as the Canon and
Epson back ends, and cups-calibrate) are not versioned, but are not linked against
libgutenprint and do not have any other dependencies on Gutenprint.
● You may wish to use --disable-static-genppd if your distribution separates the
Gutenprint core libraries from the CUPS component. Be sure that you understand the issues
surrounding this.
16 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
3.4) Foomatic
Foomatic is a printer meta-driver that can be used with any spooler (CUPS, lpd, LPRng, etc.) or even
no spooler at all. It uses XML data describing printer and driver capabilities in conjunction with
Ghostscript to allow printing in any environment. Please visit
http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic.html for more information.
We normally recommend using the native CUPS driver described above if your system uses CUPS as
its spooler. However, some systems (many releases of Fedora Core, for example) use Foomatic as the
repository for all printer information; the tools provided on those systems will not recognize the CUPS
PPD files. If your system uses Foomatic in this way, or does not use CUPS, you should use Foomatic
to manage your printers.
The Gutenprint driver for Foomatic requires Foomatic 2.0 or higher; Foomatic 3.0 or above is highly
recommended. It also requires GNU Ghostscript 6.53 or newer, AFPL Ghostscript 7.04 or newer, or
ESP Ghostscript 7.05 or newer for IJS support.
The Foomatic support in Gutenprint consists of a data generator and an IJS-based Ghostscript driver. It
is possible to use the Ghostscript driver without Foomatic, but the Gutenprint options are complex and
subject to change without notice. Older printer configuration tools such as apsfilter and magicfilter do
not provide a convenient interface to the driver's capabilities. Therefore, we no longer provide
documentation on direct use of the Ghostscript driver without the Foomatic front end.
The Ghostscript driver in Gutenprint 5.0 is based on the IJS protocol. IJS is a protocol originally
developed by Hewlett-Packard to allow new drivers to be used with Ghostscript without having to be
compiled into Ghostscript. As this driver runs in a separate process, and IJS is licensed in a way
compatible with the GPL, this driver may be used with AFPL Ghostscript if desired. We no longer
offer the legacy stp driver provided in Gimp-Print 4.2. This driver was difficult to maintain and
required a complex procedure to integrate with Ghostscript.
Gutenprint 5.0 offers two Foomatic drivers, one supporting the full range of options and the other
supporting simplified options, as describe above under CUPS. The full-featured driver is named
gutenprint-ijs.5.0; the simplified driver is named gutenprint-ijs-simplified.5.0.
This allows Gutenprint 5.0 to coexist with Gimp-Print 4.2; both drivers may be installed and used (on
separate printer queues, of course) on the same system.
Normally, the Gutenprint configure script will automatically detect the presence of Foomatic and
Ghostscript on your system. In some cases, you may have to install a Ghostscript development
package that may be named gs-devel, ghostscript-library, or the like for the IJS capability.
The Foomatic driver will not allow use of PPD files created from Foomatic data from a different
version of Gutenprint. This ensures that the PPD files accurately match the driver in use. However,
there is no automatic upgrade tool provided for the Foomatic driver, unlike the CUPS driver.
Therefore, all queues using a Gutenprint driver must be updated manually, using either tools provided
by your distribution or the Foomatic tool foomatic-ppdfile.
Notes to Packagers
● We recommend packaging the IJS driver (/usr/bin/ijsgutenprint.5.0) and its man
page (/usr/man/man1/ijsgutenprint.1.gz) together with the Foomatic data.
17 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
● The IJS driver and the Foomatic data kit and PPD files are versioned at the minor release level
(e. g. 5.0), and hence you should consider permitting multiple versions to be installed
concurrently. The man page (/usr/man/man1/ijsgutenprint.1.gz) is not versioned,
and is just a stub to satisfy distribution requirements that a man page be provided for all
commands installed on the system.
3.5) The GIMP
Gutenprint may be used with an enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP, providing the ability to print
images. If you wish to do so, you must use the GIMP 1.2.3 or above on the 1.2 line, or any GIMP 2.x
release (2.0, 2.2, etc.) Please read the release notes in addition to this README, as there have been
some changes in procedure since Gimp-Print 4.2 if you are using certain versions of the GIMP.
The enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP replaces the Gimp-Print 4.2-based plugin provided with the
GIMP 2.0 and 2.2. As of the GIMP 2.4, the GIMP team provides a new Print plugin based on the
GtkPrint framework. This plugin provides standard printing capabilities, but does not provide all of the
new Gutenprint 5.0 features. Therefore, the enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP distributed with
Gutenprint does not replace that plugin, but is installed alongside that plugin.
If your system separates development packages from runtime packages, you will typically have to
install development packages for the GIMP itself, in addition to GTK+ and glib. With the GIMP 2.x
and GTK+ 2.x, additional packages may be required.
Normally, the Gutenprint configure script detects which version, if any, of the GIMP is installed and
builds an appropriate plugin. If the configure script does not detect it properly, you may need to
specify --with-gimp or --with-gimp2. However, it's more likely that you need to install
appropriate development packages.
Normally Gutenprint installs the GIMP Print plugin in your system plugin directory. If you wish to
install it in your personal plugin directory, you may use
./configure --enable-user-install
It is not possible for Gimp-Print 4.2 and Gutenprint 5.0 (or any future release) to coexist in the same
installation of the GIMP. The Gutenprint 5.0-based plugin can read settings from previous versions of
Gimp-Print, but the configuration file format in Gutenprint 5.0 cannot be read by older versions of
Gimp-Print.
The GIMP 1.2 will not be supported in Gutenprint 5.1 and beyond. However, all Gutenprint 5.0
releases will support the GIMP 1.2.
The GIMP 2.x plugin may eventually be migrated to the GIMP project for a future GIMP release and
be removed from the Gutenprint distribution.
Note to Packagers
The GIMP plugin, unlike the core library and the Foomatic and CUPS drivers, may not be installed
concurrently with other versions. For example, you may not install both the Gimp-Print 4.2 and the
Gutenprint 5.0 version of the Print plugin, as they use different configuration file formats.
18 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
3.6) escputil
escputil is a command line utility for administering Epson inkjet printers. It performs head
alignment, retrieval of ink levels and status information, printing of test patterns, etc. It is built and
installed by default; if you don't want it, you may use --without-escputil when configuring.
escputil uses the readline package for interactive commands (currently only head alignment
falls into this category). Linking against libreadline sometimes requires linking against other packages.
Gutenprint attempts to determine the correct packages to link against; the exact sequence is described
in the release notes. If you do not wish to use readline, you may use --without-readline.
Unlike the case in Gimp-Print 4.2, this utility is not standalone; it requires the installation of the core
Gutenprint package to function. This allows it to support new printers without modification.
Note to Packagers
escputil presents installation problems in that on most systems users without superuser privileges
do not have access to the raw printer port. We have tried to make escputil robust (in particular,
we've tried to identify potential buffer overflow issues), but we have not conducted a full security audit
to ensure that it is safe to install with setuid privileges. We advise distributors to carefully consider
their installation strategy for escputil.
3.7) Other Packages
Gutenprint includes a few other packages: a test pattern generator and a test suite. If you wish to
compile these, you may use --enable-test and/or --enable-testpattern.
The test pattern generator permits generating various test patterns; it can also be used to print images in
16-bit depth and specifying all ink channels separately. The image format is not documented outside of
the code itself; it is not a general purpose printing tool. It is used as part of the regression test suite.
To run the test suite, you must configure in both the tests and the test pattern generator and run make
check. The test suite takes about 12 hours to run, depending upon the speed of the processor.
The tests currently cover the following areas:
1. Regression test each printer with default settings, using each dither algorithm.
2. Regression test each input and output type in 8 and 16 bit, in grayscale and color, on the Epson
Stylus Photo R800 (which has additional red and blue inks that use additional code paths).
3. Regression test each resolution and ink type in color and black and white on each printer.
4. Regression test CUPS PPD files for correctness, using the cupstestppd command provided with
CUPS. This test fails if there are any errors in relaxed mode; it allows failures in strict mode
but gives a warning.
5. Test functionality of the new curve data type.
6. Regression test each dither algorithm with different types of inputs and drop sizes.
7. Regression and functional test of the weave (interleave) code. This test is the most timeconsuming of the entire suite, as it tests every weave pattern used by every printer in every
mode (currently about 700,000 cases).
19 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
Four of the tests in the suite can be run individually under valgrind to check correctness of memory
use. These are:
● src/testpattern/run-testpattern
● src/testpattern/run-testpattern-1
● src/testpattern/run-testpattern-2
● test/run-testdither
The following options can be passed to each of these tests:
● -v Run valgrind normally, displaying errors and memory leaks.
● -v -v Run valgrind with enhanced leak resolution, and show reachable memory in
addition to memory leaks.
● -v -v -v Run valgrind with enhanced leak resolution, show reachable memory in addition
to memory leaks, and display all errors (no limit on errors displayed).
● -c Use cachegrind for performance profiling (cannot be used in combination with
other -v options).
If you use valgrind with run-testpattern-2, we recommend use of the -s option to skip testing
printers that share identical characteristics with other printers, in order to save time. Programs run
under valgrind take many times longer to run than normal.
In addition, in order to successfully use valgrind, you must compile with static libraries only (-disable-shared). If you do not do so, you will run valgrind on a small wrapper script rather than
on the test itself.
It is a release requirement that all tests pass, with valgrind where applicable. At the present time there
is one known non-fatal valgrind error (on the Canon iPixma 4000 in grayscale mode) and one memory
leak associated with that error. This is under investigation and will either be fixed or the requirement
be waived for this particular issue.
Note to Packagers
You may wish to distribute the test pattern generator in a development package, as it's useful as sample
code if nothing else. In addition, there are some tools in the test directory that aren't installed that may
be of use. These tools are:
parse-escp2 is a Perl script that parses Epson inkjet output files. This is useful as a data gathering
tool for reporting bugs; the output of this tool is much more compact than the actual print file.
parse-bjc is a similar script for parsing Canon inkjet output files; it is not as well maintained.
unprint is a tool for reconstituting an image from an Epson inkjet output file. The image is not a
true continuous-tone image; each pixel is synthesized based on which drops are printed.
pcl-unprint and bjc-unprint are similar tools for PCL and Canon output files, respectively.
None of these tools are versioned.
20 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
4) Getting Started
This section describes how to get started using Gutenprint. Certain details (particularly for installation
and configuration of printers) may vary depending upon your operating system.
Using Gutenprint consists the following steps:
1. Installing your printer
2. Configuring desired options
4.1) Printer Installation
The actual procedure to install a printer depends upon your operating system and the spooler (printing
system) in use on your system. This section describes how to identify the correct Gutenprint driver for
your printer; the instructions for installing and configuring printers vary widely with operating system
distributions.
Gutenprint does not require the use of non-standard procedures (such as starting special programs at
boot time) to install and use printers. Assuming that you are using either CUPS or Foomatic, it
integrates with your printing system, so the tools provided by your distribution vendor should work
correctly with Gutenprint.
Most printing systems currently use PPD files to describe printer capabilities. Some printers are
supported by more than one driver, so you may find more than one PPD file for your printer.
Gutenprint PPD files are described as
● Epson Stylus Photo R300 Foomatic/gutenprint-ijs.5.0
● Epson Stylus Photo R300 Foomatic/gutenprint-ijs-simplified.5.0
● Epson Stylus Photo R300 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.0.0
● Epson Stylus Photo R300 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.0.0 Simplified
The “simplified” PPD files offer a basic set of options only, for selecting printer options, standard
paper sizes, and basic quality settings. The PPD files that are not “simplified” offer a much broader set
of controls, giving the user extensive control over quality and color adjustment.
If you are using CUPS, you may be offered a choice between CUPS+Gutenprint and
Foomatic/gutenprint-ijs PPD files. While either kind of PPD file will work, we recommend
using the CUPS+Gutenprint PPD files. These PPD files can be automatically updated to future
versions of Gutenprintwith cups-genppdupdate.5.0.
Other PPD files are described differently, such as
● Epson MJ 520C Foomatic/stcolor (recommended)
These PPD files, whether “recommended” or not, are not Gutenprint PPD files.
4.1.1) CUPS
● If you have previously installed any version of Gutenprint numbered 5.0 (including alpha, beta,
and release candidates), you do not need to reinstall your printer queues from scratch when you
21 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
upgrade Gutenprint to a newer version. The Gutenprint utility cups-genppdupdate.5.0
will upgrade your printer queues automatically, after which you must restart CUPS (the
procedure to do this is system-dependent). cups-genppdupdate.5.0 will not upgrade
PPD files from Gimp-Print 4.2. Your operating system distribution vendor or packager may
provide alternate instructions.
This procedure works only with native CUPS PPD files (“CUPS+Gutenprint”), not with
Foomatic PPD files (“Foomatic/gutenprint-ijs”).
● If you do not choose to automatically update existing PPD files, you should reinstall any
printers that you are using Gutenprint PPD files with. The Gutenprint driver and the PPD files
must be kept in sync, since the PPD files reflect the particular version of the driver that they
were built against. If you attempt to use a version of Gutenprint with PPD files not built for that
precise version, the driver will fail with a diagnostic error message. For example, PPD files
built for Gutenprint 5.0.0-beta4 will not work with driver version 5.0.0. You can identify
Gutenprint versions by the name of the PPD file, which will be something like:
EPSON Stylus Photo EX - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.0.0(en)
● Linux users please note: if you are using CUPS 1.1.11 or higher, and you have a USB-
connected printer, you must have a printer connected to each USB port that you plan to use and
powered on when you restart CUPS. If you do not do so, you will not be able to reinstall the
printer. It is only necessary to do this if you wish to update PPD files manually; if you use
cups-genppdupdate.5.0, you do not need to do this.
● Starting with CUPS 1.1.11, you cannot choose an AppSocket connection and enter
usb:/dev/usblp0 or the like as the URI; you will get a
client-error-not-possible error at the end of the installation process, and you will
have a message like the following in your CUPS error log (typically
/var/log/cups/error_log):
E [21/Nov/2001:17:59:07 +0500] add_printer: bad device-uri
attribute 'usb:/dev/usb/lp0'!
If the printer was turned on correctly, you will be given a choice of a USB connection in the
Device dialog.
● You may also have problems if you have a .lpoptions file that has old options set. If you
have problems printing, please remove any existing .lpoptions file in your home directory
and try printing again.
4.1.2) Foomatic
● When you install a new version of Gutenprint, you must upgrade your PPD files (any PPD files
with “Foomatic/gutenprint-ijs” in their name). Your vendor may provide system-specific
instructions for installing and/or upgrading PPD files. The standard Foomatic tool for
generating PPD files is foomatic-ppdfile. The normal command line is
foomatic-ppdfile -d <driver> -p <Foomatic-printer-ID>
The list of supported printers in this manual provides the Foomatic ID for each supported
printer. So for example, to create a PPD file for an Epson Stylus CX4500, the command line is
22 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
foomatic-ppdfile -d gutenprint-ijs.5.0 -p Epson-Stylus_CX4500
● Many of the options offered in the Foomatic-based PPD files have additional options with
“Enable” in their name, e. g. “Density Enable”. Due to the way Foomatic works, it is not
currently possible to have options that take numeric values that can also take a non-numeric
value of “Default”. The solution in Gutenprint is to add an additional option that enables or
disables the numeric option. Therefore, if you want to set the ink density, you must also set
Density Enable to “Enabled”.
● Some versions of Foomatic 3.x cannot handle the volume of data in the Gutenprint printer
database. The solution is to upgrade to the newest version of Foomatic offered on
http://linuxprinting.org.
23 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
4.1.3) The GIMP
● The main dialog of the enhanced Print plugin is similar to that of the Gimp-Print 4.2 plugin. It
offers additional options. In addition, the preview is now always oriented so that the top of the
preview represents the top edge of the page (the edge that's fed first into the printer).
Illustration 1: Main Enhanced Print Plugin dialog
24 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
● The color adjustment dialog offers many new options compared to Gimp-Print 4.2. Many
adjustments are “off” by default and must be enabled via the checkbox to have any effect. The
default value for numerical options does not mean the same thing as the option being turned off;
when the option is turned off, the driver selects an appropriate value.
Note that it is possible to view the output of each ink channel independently if so desired.
Illustration 2: Color Adjustment dialog
25 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
● The New Printer dialog provides a way of creating a new group of settings. For example, you
may wish to create a “printer” with settings appropriate for printing photographs to high quality
glossy paper, with a second printer set up for printing to high quality matte paper. The printer is
created with the current settings; when you select the printer from the Printer Name dialog, its
settings are then used. The new printer's settings can now be changed independent of the other
printers defined.
Illustration 3: New Printer dialog
● The Setup Printer dialog is very different from Gimp-Print 4.2; it provides a much more
intuitive interface for selecting the printer and model to print to.
Illustration 4: Setup Printer dialog for supported printers
The printer make and model should be self-explanatory. The dialog offers a choice of printer
queue and shows the command that will be used to print the file. You may also select a file to
print to, or specify a custom command if so desired.
26 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
● If you wish to print to a printer that is not on the list of printers supported by Gutenprint, but for
which you have a PPD file, you should select Adobe PostScript Level 2 (or Level 1 if your
printer is very old). This will let you select the appropriate PPD file. Currently the dialog
offers only a few options from the PPD file.
It is possible to use this with printers natively supported by Gutenprint, but you will lose all of
the enhanced features of Gutenprint 5.0.
This interface is likely to be redesigned to offer all PPD options and also to not require
specifying a PPD file (the plugin will find the correct PPD file based on the printer selected).
Illustration 5: Setup Printer dialog for unsupported printers
4.2) Configuring Printer Options
Gutenprint offers a variety of printing options, controlling printer options, color correction, and quality.
Depending upon the application you're printing from and the tools provided by the system, they may be
organized in various ways.
A description of all of the options available with this package, which vary from printer to printer, is
provided at the end of this manual. The most important settings are the Basic Printer Options and the
Basic Output Controls. The most important of these are:
Page Size
Select the paper (media) size to print to.
27 Gutenprint 5.0 User's Manual 07/16/2006
Double-Sided Printing
Otherwise known as “duplex” printing, this is offered for printers capable of printing on both
sides of the page (generally laser printers).
Media Type
Select the kind of paper or other media being printed to. This enables the printer and driver to
be set up appropriately for the kind of paper in use. It is important to set this to the kind of
paper you are printing to; failure to do so will typically yield poor results.
Media Source
Select the source of the paper or other media. This option is offered with printers that have
multiple feeds, for example multiple paper bins, manual feed, printing directly to a CD, etc.
Output Type
This option specifies whether to print in color or black and white/grayscale (using only black
inks). Black and white printing is generally faster than color printing, even if the item being
printed is entirely black and white. However, printing with only black ink may yield a “grainy”
appearance.
Color Correction
This selects the choice of color correction method within Gutenprint. Normally it is not
necessary to change this setting from the default, which selects a color correction mode
appropriate for the document being printed. Other common settings:
● High Accuracy Apply optimum color correction to the output to produce the best color
quality. This corrects the hue, brightness, and saturation (brilliance of color). This is
the normal setting to use for printing photographs or graphics if you are not using any
external color management.
● Bright Colors Apply color correction to the output, but generate more brilliant colors in
some cases.
● Uncorrected Do not apply any color correction to the output beyond generating linear
output. This is the best setting to use when utilizing external color management; the
high accuracy modes employ correction algorithms that may not work well with color
management.
Note: if you use color management with ColorSync or ICC profiles you should use profiles
created with Gutenprint and with the exact settings that you plan to print with. We recommend
using the Uncorrected setting for color correction in this situation, both when creating the
profile and when printing. Profiles provided by the printer vendor are calibrated for the
vendor's driver, which may not be identical to Gutenprint's calibration. In addition, profiles
created using Gimp-Print 4.2 or earlier will generally not perform well with Gutenprint 5.0.
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