Re: [CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2020-07-22 Thread Fred Smith
On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 07:05:52PM -0400, H wrote:
> On 09/20/2019 08:27 PM, H wrote:
> > On 09/20/2019 09:02 AM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> >> On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 20:23, H  wrote:
> >>> I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with 
> >>> the printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I 
> >>> print PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and 
> >>> the pages very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration 
> >>> panel are fine and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are 
> >>> all OK yet it prints more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.
> >>>
> >> Warning: this advise is old and possibly out of date for how printer
> >> administration should be done these days.
> >>
> >> Usually when I run into this sort of issue it usually has to be fixed
> >> with an updated ppd driver from the vendor for that printer... usually
> >> the one they give to Apple and possibly one that was aimed for the
> >> country/area the language is not working on. I would then have to
> >> double set the printer with one for Western fonts and one for
> >> non-Western using 2 different ppds because things looked wrong one way
> >> or another. In looking at the ppd's it looked like they had the
> >> equivalent to microcode they sent the printer to update to do things
> >> 'better'. I can say the quality of printing was vastly different.
> >>
> >> The other item was just that some fonts look great on screen and dont'
> >> print well.. but I am guessing htis is one printer which is acting
> >> badly and others are doing well?
> >>
> >>
> >>> Any suggestion what might be wrong?
> >>>
> >>> ___
> >>> CentOS mailing list
> >>> CentOS@centos.org
> >>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
> >>
> > See my reply to Fred. Just checked the printer drivers for Linux on the 
> > Brother website 
> > (https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us=en=hll2360dw_us=127)
> >  and it looks the drivers for Linux are from 2014 and 2015...
> >
> > The printer driver for Mac OS 10.14 is more recent from 2018 
> > (https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us=en=hll2360dw_us=10052)
> >  and that page also lists a firmware update tool with firmware from July of 
> > this year. The update history for the firmware refers only to 
> > "improvements" and "software bugs", not very helpful.
> >
> > Clearly I need to see if I can update the firmware. The most current 
> > firmware on the page above is 1.29 whereas my printer has 1.25. Annoyingly 
> > the firmware update instructions on this page refers to how to do the 
> > update on a Mac...
> >
> Closing out my problem above. I installed the driver on a new computer 
> running CentOS 7 and had no problems printing. There must have been a 
> misconfiguration of the driver on the old computer, or, less likely, the 
> Brother driver had been updated on the Brother website.
> 
> I am now a happy camper.

I've also noticed that the Brother drivers for Linux are quite old, I sent a 
support question
about it and they denied there being a problem with some sort of market-speak. 
Nevertheless, they have always worked for  me.

-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -
 God made him who had no sin
  to be sin for us, so that in him
 we might become the righteousness of God."
--- Corinthians 5:21 -
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Re: [CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2020-07-22 Thread H
On 09/20/2019 08:27 PM, H wrote:
> On 09/20/2019 09:02 AM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 20:23, H  wrote:
>>> I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with the 
>>> printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I print 
>>> PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and the 
>>> pages very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration panel 
>>> are fine and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are all OK 
>>> yet it prints more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.
>>>
>> Warning: this advise is old and possibly out of date for how printer
>> administration should be done these days.
>>
>> Usually when I run into this sort of issue it usually has to be fixed
>> with an updated ppd driver from the vendor for that printer... usually
>> the one they give to Apple and possibly one that was aimed for the
>> country/area the language is not working on. I would then have to
>> double set the printer with one for Western fonts and one for
>> non-Western using 2 different ppds because things looked wrong one way
>> or another. In looking at the ppd's it looked like they had the
>> equivalent to microcode they sent the printer to update to do things
>> 'better'. I can say the quality of printing was vastly different.
>>
>> The other item was just that some fonts look great on screen and dont'
>> print well.. but I am guessing htis is one printer which is acting
>> badly and others are doing well?
>>
>>
>>> Any suggestion what might be wrong?
>>>
>>> ___
>>> CentOS mailing list
>>> CentOS@centos.org
>>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>>
> See my reply to Fred. Just checked the printer drivers for Linux on the 
> Brother website 
> (https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us=en=hll2360dw_us=127)
>  and it looks the drivers for Linux are from 2014 and 2015...
>
> The printer driver for Mac OS 10.14 is more recent from 2018 
> (https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us=en=hll2360dw_us=10052)
>  and that page also lists a firmware update tool with firmware from July of 
> this year. The update history for the firmware refers only to "improvements" 
> and "software bugs", not very helpful.
>
> Clearly I need to see if I can update the firmware. The most current firmware 
> on the page above is 1.29 whereas my printer has 1.25. Annoyingly the 
> firmware update instructions on this page refers to how to do the update on a 
> Mac...
>
Closing out my problem above. I installed the driver on a new computer running 
CentOS 7 and had no problems printing. There must have been a misconfiguration 
of the driver on the old computer, or, less likely, the Brother driver had been 
updated on the Brother website.

I am now a happy camper.

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Re: [CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2019-09-20 Thread H
On 09/20/2019 09:02 AM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 20:23, H  wrote:
>> I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with the 
>> printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I print 
>> PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and the 
>> pages very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration panel 
>> are fine and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are all OK yet 
>> it prints more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.
>>
> Warning: this advise is old and possibly out of date for how printer
> administration should be done these days.
>
> Usually when I run into this sort of issue it usually has to be fixed
> with an updated ppd driver from the vendor for that printer... usually
> the one they give to Apple and possibly one that was aimed for the
> country/area the language is not working on. I would then have to
> double set the printer with one for Western fonts and one for
> non-Western using 2 different ppds because things looked wrong one way
> or another. In looking at the ppd's it looked like they had the
> equivalent to microcode they sent the printer to update to do things
> 'better'. I can say the quality of printing was vastly different.
>
> The other item was just that some fonts look great on screen and dont'
> print well.. but I am guessing htis is one printer which is acting
> badly and others are doing well?
>
>
>> Any suggestion what might be wrong?
>>
>> ___
>> CentOS mailing list
>> CentOS@centos.org
>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>
>
See my reply to Fred. Just checked the printer drivers for Linux on the Brother 
website 
(https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us=en=hll2360dw_us=127)
 and it looks the drivers for Linux are from 2014 and 2015...

The printer driver for Mac OS 10.14 is more recent from 2018 
(https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us=en=hll2360dw_us=10052)
 and that page also lists a firmware update tool with firmware from July of 
this year. The update history for the firmware refers only to "improvements" 
and "software bugs", not very helpful.

Clearly I need to see if I can update the firmware. The most current firmware 
on the page above is 1.29 whereas my printer has 1.25. Annoyingly the firmware 
update instructions on this page refers to how to do the update on a Mac...

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Re: [CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2019-09-20 Thread H
On 09/19/2019 11:40 PM, Fred Smith wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 08:25:48PM -0400, H wrote:
>> On 09/19/2019 08:23 PM, H wrote:
>>> I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with the 
>>> printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I print 
>>> PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and the 
>>> pages very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration panel 
>>> are fine and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are all OK 
>>> yet it prints more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.
>>>
>>> Any suggestion what might be wrong?
>>>
>> I should have added that the "toner save mode" is off and I also tried to 
>> set it to "thick paper" with no difference. I am printing on regular 
>> copy/printer paper.
> do these same documents print in much better quality on other
> printers? From the same Linux box?
>
> Are they "text" PDFs, or "image" PDFs? where what I call an "image"
> PDF is a series of pages that are each an image of a page, not the stream
> of text that makes up the page.
>
> I've encountered such images before and you're stuck with whatever
> quality they have, often poor.
>
> If a more normal PDF that just contains the actual text, is it possible
> that the Chinese font(s) on your system are low quality? Or if they
> contain embedded fonts, that those fonts are low quality?
>
> I don't know offhand how to find out if any particular document contains
> embedded fonts, but I imagine there are tools that will report that.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Fred
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>> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Looking at the document, which is an article from a medical journal, it 
contains an embedded TrueType font WenQuanYiZenHei so it should not default to 
any font on my CentOS 7 system. Further, a colleague using a Mac is able to 
print the very same document at higher quality than I am (not sure what printer 
she has though).

Thus, I am leaning towards a printer driver/printer problem on my system.

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Re: [CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2019-09-20 Thread Stephen John Smoogen
On Thu, 19 Sep 2019 at 20:23, H  wrote:
>
> I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with the 
> printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I print 
> PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and the pages 
> very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration panel are fine 
> and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are all OK yet it prints 
> more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.
>

Warning: this advise is old and possibly out of date for how printer
administration should be done these days.

Usually when I run into this sort of issue it usually has to be fixed
with an updated ppd driver from the vendor for that printer... usually
the one they give to Apple and possibly one that was aimed for the
country/area the language is not working on. I would then have to
double set the printer with one for Western fonts and one for
non-Western using 2 different ppds because things looked wrong one way
or another. In looking at the ppd's it looked like they had the
equivalent to microcode they sent the printer to update to do things
'better'. I can say the quality of printing was vastly different.

The other item was just that some fonts look great on screen and dont'
print well.. but I am guessing htis is one printer which is acting
badly and others are doing well?


> Any suggestion what might be wrong?
>
> ___
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> CentOS@centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
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Re: [CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2019-09-19 Thread Fred Smith
On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 08:25:48PM -0400, H wrote:
> On 09/19/2019 08:23 PM, H wrote:
> > I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with the 
> > printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I print 
> > PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and the 
> > pages very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration panel 
> > are fine and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are all OK 
> > yet it prints more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.
> >
> > Any suggestion what might be wrong?
> >
> I should have added that the "toner save mode" is off and I also tried to set 
> it to "thick paper" with no difference. I am printing on regular copy/printer 
> paper.

do these same documents print in much better quality on other
printers? From the same Linux box?

Are they "text" PDFs, or "image" PDFs? where what I call an "image"
PDF is a series of pages that are each an image of a page, not the stream
of text that makes up the page.

I've encountered such images before and you're stuck with whatever
quality they have, often poor.

If a more normal PDF that just contains the actual text, is it possible
that the Chinese font(s) on your system are low quality? Or if they
contain embedded fonts, that those fonts are low quality?

I don't know offhand how to find out if any particular document contains
embedded fonts, but I imagine there are tools that will report that.

Good luck!

Fred
> 
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-- 
 Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -
  The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, 
keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
- Proverbs 15:3 (niv) -
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Re: [CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2019-09-19 Thread H
On 09/19/2019 08:23 PM, H wrote:
> I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with the 
> printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I print 
> PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and the pages 
> very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration panel are fine 
> and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are all OK yet it prints 
> more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.
>
> Any suggestion what might be wrong?
>
I should have added that the "toner save mode" is off and I also tried to set 
it to "thick paper" with no difference. I am printing on regular copy/printer 
paper.

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[CentOS] Brother HL-L2360DW printing quality

2019-09-19 Thread H
I have the above printer but have not been able to resolve issues with the 
printing quality in CentOS 7. The test page prints fine but when I print 
PDF-documents, most recently using Chinese fonts, it is lacking and the pages 
very hard to read. The settings in the Mate Cups configuration panel are fine 
and set to 600 dpi, the settings in the printer menu are all OK yet it prints 
more like maybe 150 or even 75 dpi.

Any suggestion what might be wrong?

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