How to set print quality with lpr? (I.e. 360 dpi vs. 720 dpi)

How can you set your printer to print at 360 dpi as opposed to 720 dpi
using lpr or other command line print command?

I'm using Mandrake 9.1 and an Epson Stylus Color 880 Ink Jet.

Programs like OpenOffice have a dialog box for this, so I know the
printer can do it, but gv doesn't have this dialog box, but it gives you
a command line to make options.


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Sugapablo <russREMOVE@sugapablo.com>,
In a message on Sat, 08 Nov 2003 14:38:40 -0500, wrote :

S> How can you set your printer to print at 360 dpi as opposed to 720 dpi
S> using lpr or other command line print command?
S>
S> I'm using Mandrake 9.1 and an Epson Stylus Color 880 Ink Jet.
S>
S> Programs like OpenOffice have a dialog box for this, so I know the
S> printer can do it, but gv doesn't have this dialog box, but it gives you
S> a command line to make options.

What *I* did was make two printer queues (originally lpd/printtool under
RH 6.2, later LPRng under RH 7.3):

#
# This printcap is being created with printtool v.3.27
# Any changes made here manually will be lost if printtool
# is run later on.
# The presence of this header means that no printcap
# existed when printtool was run.
#
##PRINTTOOL3## REMOTE
color|Epson600:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd/color:\
:mx#0:\
:sh:\
:rm=smaug.deepsoft.com:\
:rp=color:\
:if=/var/spool/lpd/color/filter:
##PRINTTOOL3## REMOTE
fastcolor:\
:sd=/var/spool/lpd/fastcolor:\
:mx#0:\
:sh:\
:rm=smaug.deepsoft.com:\
:rp=fastcolor:\
:if=/var/spool/lpd/fastcolor/filter:

And have different postscript.cfg files:

sauron.deepsoft.com% sudo diff /var/spool/lpd/color/postscript.cfg /var/spool/lpd/fastcolor/postscript.cfg
8c8
< COLOR=stc600ih
---
> COLOR=stc600p

Ultimately, they feed the same printer on the same parallel port. Linux
has no problem with this.

I choose print quality on the command line by selecting the print queue
to use:

lpr -Pcolor finalversion.ps

lpr -Pfastcolor draftversion.ps

S>
S>
S> --
S> [ Sugapablo ]
S> [ http://www.sugapablo.com <--music ]
S> [ http://www.sugapablo.net <--personal ]
S> [ sugapablo@12jabber.com <--jabber IM ]
S>
S>

\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: heller@cs.umass.edu
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || heller@deepsoft.com
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153

Sugapablo wrote:
>
> How can you set your printer to print at 360 dpi as opposed to 720 dpi
> using lpr or other command line print command?

Are you using BSD lpr, LPRng, or CUPS' own lpr? It makes a difference.

John-Paul Stewart wrote:
> Sugapablo wrote:
>
>>How can you set your printer to print at 360 dpi as opposed to 720 dpi
>>using lpr or other command line print command?
>
>
> Are you using BSD lpr, LPRng, or CUPS' own lpr? It makes a difference.

Cups I suppose:

Copyright 1993-2003 by Easy Software Products, All Rights Reserved.

23 January 2001 Common UNIX Printing System lpr(1)

--
[ Sugapablo ]
[ http://www.sugapablo.com <--music ]
[ http://www.sugapablo.net <--personal ]
[ sugapablo@12jabber.com <--jabber IM ]

Sugapablo wrote:
>
> John-Paul Stewart wrote:
> > Sugapablo wrote:
> >
> >>How can you set your printer to print at 360 dpi as opposed to 720 dpi
> >>using lpr or other command line print command?
> >
> >
> > Are you using BSD lpr, LPRng, or CUPS' own lpr? It makes a difference.
>
> Cups I suppose:

OK. Then you can use the 'lpoptions' program and/or the '-o' switch on
the lpr command line.

Run 'lpoptions' with no arguments to get a list of currently set
options. 'lpoptions -l' will list all available options for the
printer. You set/change them with 'lpoptions -o <option>=<value>'.
(I'm not sure how to specify a printer if you have more than one.)

Any of those options can also be specified on the lpr command line
(IIRC) with the form 'lpr -o <option>=<value> ...' and the rest of the
usual lpr command line. IIRC, you can even specify different options
for different pages within the job with the format 'lpr -o
<pages>:<option>=<value> ...'.

Using the lpr method sets/changes them on a per-job basis, whereas
lpoptions will change the defaults for all subsequent print jobs.

'man lpoptions' and/or see the CUPS documentation for more info.

John-Paul Stewart <jpstewart@sympatico.ca> writes:

[CUPS]
> OK. Then you can use the 'lpoptions' program and/or the '-o' switch on
> the lpr command line.
>
> Run 'lpoptions' with no arguments to get a list of currently set
> options. 'lpoptions -l' will list all available options for the
> printer. You set/change them with 'lpoptions -o <option>=<value>'.
> (I'm not sure how to specify a printer if you have more than one.)
>
> Any of those options can also be specified on the lpr command line
> (IIRC) with the form 'lpr -o <option>=<value> ...' and the rest of the
> usual lpr command line. IIRC, you can even specify different options
> for different pages within the job with the format 'lpr -o
> <pages>:<option>=<value> ...'.
>
> Using the lpr method sets/changes them on a per-job basis, whereas
> lpoptions will change the defaults for all subsequent print jobs.
>
> 'man lpoptions' and/or see the CUPS documentation for more info.

If he isn't doing so already, the OP should check to see if he is
using the Gimp-Print driver for his Epson Stylus Color 880. This will
give significantly improved quality at both 360 and 720 DPI compared
with the standard CUPS (and ghostscript) drivers.

This is shipped with Mandrake, but I'm not sure if it's installed by
default.


--
Roger Leigh

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