Number up option is processed before the page extraction option

[Alex Korobkin]

When printing multiple pages per sheet, it seems that number-up option is processed before the page range option.

For example, the command below will print 4 pages of the document using two sheets of paper, instead of one sheet with two pages.

lp -o page-ranges=1-2 -o number-up=2 filename.pdf

This bug makes it impossible to print odd number of pages with number-up option > 1. Say, if I want to print three pages using two pages per sheet, and I will not be able to.

This was tested with Cups 1.7.5, cups-filters 1.0.69 on Ubuntu.

[Tobias Hoffmann (smilingthax)]

According to Mike Sweet [1]:

"Dec 28, 2007 by Michael Sweet:
The 1.1.x (and 1.0.x) behavior was incorrect. According to the IPP specification, number-up is applied *first*, and page-ranges refers to the imposed pages. Similarly, page-set is applied after imposition."

and here [2]:

"Nov 16, 2008 by Michael Sweet:
IPP specifies the page-ranges applies after imposition, so the current implementation is correct.

I'll add a note to the documentation about the behavior."

My man page of lp(1) says:

" -P page-list
            Specifies which pages to print in the document. The list can contain a list of numbers and ranges (#-#) separated by commas (e.g.
            1,3-5,16). The page numbers refer to the output pages and not the document's original pages - options like "number-up" can affect
            the numbering of the pages."

And -P is just a shortcut for page-ranges=.

For that reason pstops handles page-ranges the way it does. And pdftopdf deliberately follows pstops' logic.

However I don't know which IPP specification Mike references here. From my understanding of RFC2911 (IPP 1.1), Section 15.3 [3], page-ranges is applied in step 2, and number-up is applied only in the next step 3. Maybe Mike can shed some light on this issue?

[1] http://cups.org/str.php?L2643
[2] http://cups.org/str.php?L3008
[3] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2911#section-15.3

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Mike, can you have a look at Tobias' question in his comment above? Thanks.

[Michael R Sweet (msweet)]

CUPS has historically applied page-ranges after number-up, to match how page ranges and number-up interact in desktop environments and to match user expectations ("I need to re-print the 3rd page of my presentation that I printed 2-up")

I agree this is non-conforming to RFC 2911 section 15.3, but changing it now is probably not a good idea (somebody will break).

> On Jun 13, 2015, at 6:55 PM, Till Kamppeter <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Mike, can you have a look at Tobias' question in his comment above?
> Thanks.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1464783
>
> Title:
> Number up option is processed before the page extraction option
>
> Status in cups-filters package in Ubuntu:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> When printing multiple pages per sheet, it seems that number-up option
> is processed before the page range option.
>
> For example, the command below will print 4 pages of the document
> using two sheets of paper, instead of one sheet with two pages.
>
> lp -o page-ranges=1-2 -o number-up=2 filename.pdf
>
> This bug makes it impossible to print odd number of pages with number-
> up option > 1. Say, if I want to print three pages using two pages per
> sheet, and I will not be able to.
>
> This was tested with Cups 1.7.5, cups-filters 1.0.69 on Ubuntu.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups-filters/+bug/1464783/+subscriptions

_________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair