Evince doesn't print all content of pdf-file to PS-printer but to PCL-printer

[Martin Reiche]

Binary package hint: evince

I tried to print a pdf with my HP LaserJet4 which is capable of PCL and postscript. If I try to print the pdf-file to the PCL-part of the printer it just works but if I try to print it to the PS-part of the same printer it only prints some of the content of some pages.
I will try to attach some scanned examples as well as the orig. pdf-file so it will be easier to understand what I mean.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/evince
Package: evince 2.24.1-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: evince
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-7-generic x86_64

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

does this happen with all files, or just pdf files? (or just a single pdf file?)

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

It looks like it only happens with some PDFs.
Would it be helpful to attach another original PDF and the scanned results I get with PCL and PS like before or doesn't that help anything?

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

and how do you print to the different "parts" of the printer? do you have the same printer installed twice, with different drivers? might this be a driver (or cups) issue?

attaching another pdf that doesn't print correctly through the postscript driver wouldn't help. what might be useful is attaching a pdf file that prints correctly both to PCL and PS, to search for differences...

can you distinguish any pattern in which files print correctly and which don't?

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

1) Yes. I have the same printer installed twice with different drivers
PCL --> HP LaserJet 4 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.0-rc1
PS --> HP LaserJet 4/4M 600DPI Postscript

2) Distinguish: I have no idea how to distinguish if a PDF will print ok or not. Sometimes there is missing text and sometimes there are missing pictures and so on.

Is there maybe another program to open and print PDF-files? So I could try to reproduce the problem.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

try xpdf-reader

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

I tried xpdf-reader a second ago and could not print as my PC is connected via jet-direct-card as my PC doesn't have a parport and I don't know how to connect to the printer via lpr as it is the only option in xpdf-reader.

But I have found xournal ("GTK+ application for notetaking, sketching and keeping a journal using a stylus. It can also be used to add annotations to PDF files.") and I don't know why but it prints the page I added as orig. to this report perfectly (but slow as hell).

So the problem seems to be related to evince (or something related with evince and printing) as xournal prints ok.
But xournal uses an other looking printing-dialogue so maybe it makes things differently when printing, uses an other library?

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

I also tried epdfview. It prints the page better than evince but makes some other sort of errors but not far as worse as evince.

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

i'm sorry, you're right, xpdf and gv have rather ugly and difficult interfaces

epdfview is based on poppler, just like evince...

could you install the medibuntu repositories, and from there install acroread?
http://www.medibuntu.org/

then try printing to PCL and PS and tell me if it prints correctly to both...

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

I installed Acroread from Medibuntu and it prints perfectly with PCL. With PS it prints nearly perfect. The only difference I can see between those to printouts is that the PS-print does not print those brackets from the formular of the bottom slide from page 11 from the orig. PDF I attached to this report.

I should mention that all my tests relate to this one page 11 of the orig. PDF as that is one of those sites the printer has problems with.

BTW: thanks for your help :-)

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

All this leads me to conclude that the problem is not with evince, but with the PS driver for your printer (HP LaserJet4). The fact that the problem only shows itself when printing some specific pdf files shows that only those files tried to use the broken features of the PS driver.

Re-assigning to the cups source package.

Good luck, Martin

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

:-) Ok. Thanks for your help so far!

[ricardisimo (ricardisimo)]

I'm having similar problems. Evince prints frame borders, but none of the text inside of them. Meanwhile, on the same comp, same system, same printer, acroread prints just fine. The truly odd thing is that "Print Preview" - which produces some variation on "evince_print.ps.BLAHBLAH" - shows perfectly on screen, but still fails to print properly.

I'm on Ubuntu 8.10; acroread 8.1.3; evince 2.24.1.

HP Officejet 5610 All-in-One, with CUPS, I'm assuming.

P.S. - When I opened the attached PDF with OOo and exported it in place, the resulting file printed from evince very well (although the text did not fit together perfectly... not the subject of this thread though.)

[ricardisimo (ricardisimo)]

... and evince's ps print results (scanned).

[ricardisimo (ricardisimo)]

... and evince's ps print results (scanned).

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

ricardisimo, unless the document prints correctly from evince with a pcl driver, you are having a different issue, please open a new bug report against the cups package

[usr_share (usrshare)]

I just had a similar problem on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS -- evince was only printing the first page of a PDF, while epdfview worked fine. The printer is a HP Photosmart C4283, using the "HP Photosmart c4200 Series hpijs, 3.10.2" drivers.