On 2013-01-24, Joseph wrote: > On 01/24/13 11:25, Bruce Hill wrote: >>On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 09:43:06AM -0700, Joseph wrote: >>> I have a document "letter" size in landscape mode and I'm trying to >>> print it with e-document viewer >>> 4-pages per side and it will not print. Some documents prints OK >>> but this one will not print it. >>> >>> Are there better programs in Linux for printing pdf files? >>> >>> pdfinfo Biol_321_2013_Lec_06_Biogeography_1_per.pdf >>> Title: Microsoft PowerPoint - Biol 321 2013 Lec 06 >>> Biogeography.pptx >>> Author: hproctor >>> Creator: PScript5.dll Version 5.2.2 >>> Producer: Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5 (Windows) >>> CreationDate: Wed Jan 23 17:43:54 2013 >>> ModDate: Wed Jan 23 17:43:54 2013 >>> Tagged: no >>> Pages: 18 >>> Encrypted: no >>> Page size: 612 x 792 pts (letter) >>> File size: 961318 bytes >>> Optimized: yes >>> PDF version: 1.4 >> >>lp still does a good job for me: >> >>mingdao@workstation ~ $ lpstat -a >>Officejet_Pro_8500_A910 accepting requests since Wed 23 Jan 2013 >> 02:52:15 PM CST >>mingdao@workstation ~ $ lp -d Officejet_Pro_8500_A910 -o scaling=75 >> HOW-TO/apcupsd.pdf >>request id is Officejet_Pro_8500_A910-19 (1 file(s)) >> >>Bruce > > The document prints OK from windows but Linux drivers are not up to > standard :-/ > > I'm trying lpr but the following command does not print the pages I > want, it prints all pages instead of 1-8 > > lpr -o media=Letter -o landscape -o number-up=4 -o page-ranges=1-8 -o > number-up-layout=btlr > > I think "-o number-up=4" can not be combine with: "-o page-ranges=1-8"
Try using something like pdfnup (app-text/pdfjam) to generate an n-up version of the pdf before sending it to the printer. If everything else fails, try rewriting the pdf, either using pdftops then ps2pdf, or by using ghostscript directly. And I don't think you can compare the two things directly: in Windows, IIRC, the applications print using GDI. lpr sends the PDF as is directly to the CUPS server. If the PDF lacks builtin fonts, for example, those won't appear even if your PDF viewer can view them (think, fonts under your home directory, a printing server in a different machine...). Some PDF or PostScript features can hit ghostscript bugs or other issues. But, if you want my two cents, look at psnup and pdfnup. At least then you can be sure that the 4-per-page part is done. lpr options are quite simplistic; do also have a look at pdftk if you need, for example to rotate PDF pages, or to concatenate PDFs without rewriting their contents (keep the code as-is, unlike what would happen if you just fed ghostscript several pdfs, where it would rewrite the PDF code). If your issue is with a single PDF, the problem is likely some issue between a PDF feature used by that PDF and the incarnation of ghostscript you are using. Try pdftops and ps2pdf and see if the result is printable. -- Nuno Silva (aka njsg) http://njsg.sdf-eu.org/