brian@aljex.com wrote:
Well I think that starts with, if you have something that creates it's own printer codes that includes more than mere image data, like input or output bin selection codes etc,
Typically users will be printing from *office or Acrobat, and select the usual options - papersize, input tray, type of paper etc.
that you're simply not supposed to be using any filtering in the spooler period. For that you need to tell the app to use "-o raw" or equivalent option or create a raw spooler queue that includes no filtering. Then do your custom post processing yourself in your app or in your own app-printer glue.
Hmm, that sounds reasonable.
If you're not actually interested in generating pdfs but really printing, and your source data is pcl, then you have a decent option in the form of just inserting some new pcl into the print job.
It's more complicated than running a command, but it's sure super efficient at run-time.
Depending on how complex the main print job is, and depending on what you want in the watermark, it may be almost trivial to add it to each job.
I have some examples of form overlays like invoices, done in straight pcl. My application prints a page of text, and in that page is a tiny code that gets replaced on the fly with an entire form overlay file. The overlay file basically is just an image printed in pcl, with a few bytes of code manually added at the beginning that says: - remember current cursor position - move cursor to 0,0 home position - <full page image of form> - restore cursor to remembered position
That's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for! Any chance you can post an example of how you do this?
You can also load the form into the printers memory and then just invoke it any time you want with a small code, or tell the printer to just print it on every page in addition to any other incoming print data, until specifically told to stop, or until the printer loses power.
Yeah, I've been playing with this too, but my Kyocera FS-C5015N plainly refuses to print the form overlay. Just in case I'm doing something wrong: a) open the overlay document, print with "Save to Form-A". Printer confirms it was saved. b) print other document with "Use Form-A on all pages" The overlay is never printed. I'm using a small 8Mb RAM disk in the printer, and I have confirmed that the form is stored.
I can help a lot right here myself for free but it may take us a while before you have what you envision as your final goal because the back & forth cycle is slow by mail list, and it sounds like I would probably want to start with a very simple proof of concept demo print job that isn't actually useful, and walk you up from there by stages, no jumping right to the end.
For the time being, I've written a small utility that deals with the PCL etc, and this works, it's just kludgy in the extreme. I'd much rather use the forms solution, alternatively what you described above with PJL.
If you can say more exactly what kind of data you're dealing with, how it's actually generated, and what you want to do with it, I can be a lot more specific and give actual examples you can try. But a pcl job can be manipulated so many different ways that it's impossible to say what way makes most sense for you without knowing more.
Brian, first of all, thanks very much for taking the time to write all this up. Much appreciated! I'm not trying to do anything particularly special, I think - I really just want a 2nd printer queue where each page is printed with an overlay consisting of a logo (upper right hand corner) and an address (single text line on the bottom). The overlay original is just an openoffice document in PDF format. We have a number of Kyocera printers, that will do KPDL or PCL6. Typically users will be printing from openoffice or Acrobat, and select the usual options - papersize, input tray, type of paper etc. The only automated application is for billing and that produces invoices in pdf format. -- Per Jessen, Zürich (1.0°C) http://www.dns24.ch/ - free DNS hosting, made in Switzerland. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org