A3 printer is only printing A4's worth of image

[Peter Flynn]

There is a long-standing bug in CUPS or one of its drivers (PPD files?) or components (GS?) whereby if you try to print using a printer capable of A3 (mine are HP K7100 and HP K8600) you always get just an A4-shaped image in the top left corner of the sheet, with the rest of the image cut off unprinted (see links to examples below). This also applies when you try to print an A4 document scaled up ("scale to fit").

This happens in Okular, Evince, qpdfview, and even Adobe Reader 9, on all Xubuntu releases since at least 12.10 running stock unmodified CUPS as installed by the system. It continues to happen even if I install HPLIP (any version, currently 3.15.2)

This may possibly be related to Bug #357732 ("cups always prints with the default page size") but it is NOT the same bug because it also occurs if I reconfigure the printer to be an A3 default paper size. Weirdly, CUPS' test print does print correctly full-page A3.

I have seen -- once only -- a colleague print on my printers and NOT getting this cropped output, and he was printing from a Mac (also of course running CUPS) but I need to gain access to a Mac and identify the PPD file it's using and report back.

To avoid any misunderstanding, this is a photo of an A4 document printed on A3 paper set to "scale to fit" (enlarged):
    http://oimelc.ucc.ie/a4-document-printed-enlarged-on-a3-paper.jpg
And this is the same document printed at normal size on A4 paper:
    http://oimelc.ucc.ie/a4-document-printed-normalsize-on-a4-paper.jpg

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

In order to determine whether the problem is caused by the application or by the printing subsystem please provide https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingPrintingProblems#Capturing_print_job_data

[Peter Flynn (frisket)]

Thanks for the response. Here are three files in a tar.gz attachment:

~/appout (created according to instructions)
20160103_193633.jpg (photograph of the faulty printout)
brochure-a3folderFB.pdf (the original PDF)

I have found that the file prints correctly when hplip is installed; it fails as shown in the photograph when a new print queue is created using hpcups 3.15.11

This is a HP Officejet K7100 and the hpojtest queue was set to default to A3 paper.

[Peter Flynn (frisket)]

And I should have added that this test was conducted with Okular. However, the identical behaviour is found when printing with Acroread, evince, and qpdfview (which is why I thought it might be CUPS, not the apps).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for cups (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[gf (gf-interlinks-deactivatedaccount)]

Hello Peter,
Thank you for submitting this bug and reporting a problem with hplip. You made this bug report some time ago and Ubuntu and hplip have been updated since then.

Could you confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can close the ticket?
If it is still a problem, are you still interested in finding a solution to this bug?
If you are, could you let us know and, in the current version, could you run the following (only once):
apport-collect 1517116
and upload the updated logs and and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

Thank you again for helping make Ubuntu and hplip better.
G
[Ubuntu Bug Squad volunteer triager]

[Peter Flynn (frisket)]

On 08/09/18 00:01, gf wrote:
> Hello Peter,
> Thank you for submitting this bug and reporting a problem with
> hplip. You made this bug report some time ago and Ubuntu and hplip
> have been updated since then.
>
> Could you confirm that this is no longer a problem and that we can
> close the ticket?

I am away from the office until 21 Sept. As far as I know this is still
a problem but I will check and let you know.

> If it is still a problem, are you still interested in finding a
> solution to this bug?

Yes.

> If you are, could you let us know and, in the current version, could
> you run the following (only once): apport-collect 1517116 and upload
> the updated logs and and any other logs that are relevant for this
> particular issue.

Will do.

///Peter

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for hplip (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]