Laserjet 4 & 5M: Printout not in the middle of paper but a bit off to the right side

[Martin Reiche]

If I try to print something to my LaserJet 4 ("LaserJet 4 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.0-rc1") or my LaserJet 5M ("LaserJet 5 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.0-rc1") then the resulting printout is not in the middle of the paper but a bit off to the right side.
If I try then the more generic PCL-driver (for LaserJet 4 = "LaserJet PCL 4/5"; for LaserJet 5M = "LaserJet PCL 6 CUPS") the printout is perfectly in the middle of the paper.

Is there maybe something wrong/different within the ppds?

I'm on Ubuntu 8.10 with all updates as of today installed.
I attached two scaned example printouts from the LaserJet 5M only as the problem looks same with the LaserJet 4.
- 5M.png: printout with "LaserJet 5 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.0-rc1"-driver
- PCL6.png: printout with "LaserJet PCL 6 CUPS"-driver

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

The Problem still exists in a clean install of 10.04.
Does noone else have this problem?

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

I printed the CUPS Testpage (now with 10.10) and I think I found the problem.
The "Mediendruckgrenzen" (don't know the translation) are different. I think it translates to something like the area where something can be printed.

PCL (HP LaserJet 5M - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.6):
"Mediendruckgrenzen"
0.14 x 0.17 bis 8.12 x 11.53 Zoll
4 x 4 bis 206 x 293 Millimeter
"Treibername"
STP01545.PPD

PS (HP LaserJet 5M Foomatic/Postscript)
"Mediendruckgrenzen"
0.25 x 0.50 bis 8.01 x 11.19 Zoll
6 x 13 bis 204 x 284 Millimeter
"Treibername"
POSTSCRI.PPD

I wonder why the same printer has different "Mediendruckgrenzen". Maybe this should be corrected.
If you ask me, the PS one is the correct one as it prints in the middle of the paper.

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

The margins are determined in the PPD file under ImageableArea:
*ImageableArea A4/A4: "18 36 577 806"
The values are expressed in PostScript point size. The first two values are the x and y coordinates of the lower left corner and the next two values are the x and y coordinates of the upper right corner (lx ly ux uy) of a portrait A4 page.
1 PostScript point = 1/72 inch and 1 inch = 25,4 mm

Does changing the values in the gutenprint ppd to the values mentioned in the postscript ppd allow you to print the document as expected?

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

I've changed the ImageableArea from the gutenprint PPD to the values from the PS PPD but that does not help.
Both CUPS Test Pages show

"Mediendruckgrenzen"
0.25 x 0.50 bis 8.01 x 11.19 Zoll
6 x 13 bis 204 x 284 Millimeter

but the PCL printout is still not centered.

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

> but the PCL printout is still not centered.
Now I'm confused, you mean the gutenprint printout is still not centered?

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

Yes. The gutenprint printout is not centered.
I will attach both ppds from /etc/cups/ppd

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

Probably a gutenprint issue, please report a bug in the upstream gutenprint bug tracker: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=1537&atid=101537 and add a bug watch/link here.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Note that the drivers usually do not read the margins from the PPD files but have their own hard-coded margins (reading margins from the PPD would be much better for generic printer drivers, to get all printer-specific into the PPD). So it needs to be fixed in Gutenprint. Please report an upstream bug, as told already in comment #10.

In the meantime use a PostScript driver or another PCL driver (hpijs, pxlmono, ...).

[Martin Reiche (grimsrud)]

Ok... I reported the problem at Sourceforge but dont know how to add a bug watch. The link is:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3101723&group_id=1537&atid=101537