On 11/3/18 7:24 pm, Tim wrote:
On Wed, 2018-03-07 at 08:00 +1100, Stephen Morris wrote:
I have my home multifunction device connected to my router, so it is
effectively a network device.
I suppose should be really specific and say, is that an ethernet (or
WiFi) connection between printer and router, or is the printer
connected to a USB port on your router (which may entail fun and games
as how the router presents a printer to the network).
The device is a copier, scanner and printer in one device. It is an
Epson Expression ET 3700 continuous flow ink device that is connected to
the router via ethernet over a home plug device, the wifi interface on
the device doesn't work properly. The wireless interface is 2.4 GHz, and
with the device located where I had the predecessor canon device, the
Epson device can't see the network, and if I move the device to next to
the router it can see the network but continually rejects the connection
password even though the password is correct.
I need the Epson driver for Fedora and Ubuntu as cups has no support
for my device whatsoever. Having installed the driver, with no
printers defined at all in cups, if I go to Add Printers, cups sees
two network definitions for my device, one using lpd and one using
dnssd.
lpd is the old pre-CUPS-era way of doing things, if I recall correctly.
dnssd is one of those ZeroConf, Bonjour, Avahi protocols. One of those
systems would have to be working properly for that to work as intended.
Those two protocols are the two network definitions for the device that
cups sees if the Epson supplied driver is installed, without the driver
cups can't see the device at all.
If I select the lpd definition, cups adds that printer once I select
the driver, if I then go to Printers, with cups-browsed active a
second definition has automagically appeared that is using ippd,
which the definition says is driverless.
I can't recall you saying what the printer actually is. You've said
you've installed an Epson driver, perhaps it doesn't name itself in a
unique manner? Perhaps it's not really a printing "driver", just
making it appear to the system? If the printer directly accepts
PostScript, PDF, or one of a few common languages, perhaps CUPS does
the actual print driving.
Without the driver, cups doesn't have a definition in its drivers list
for this device, and neither does the Epson Escpr driver package in the
repository that I don't have installed at the moment. The printer
doesn't accept postscript or pdf or any other language that I know of,
none of the inkjet printers I've had have had any documentation on
exactly what the data output to the printer actually is. Having all 3
definitions in cups, all 3 output to the device. The driver that was in
cups for the Canon MX926 device I had previously which I was using
wirelessly, didn't have support for the 9600x4800 resolution the canon
device had either, like the Epson driver it only had support for up to
600 dpi as well.
None of these drivers impress me with their level of support for the
printer. The printer is capable of printing at 4800x1200, but all of
the drivers only offer a print resolution of "Standard" or "High". If
I'm using Windows and doing a print from Photoshop Elements, Elements
tells me the standard print resolution is 300 dpi and the high print
resolution is 600 dpi, and selecting the different Epson paper types
make no difference.
A lot of printers are just 600 dpi printers, with software doing some
pretending to make the printing look crisper.
Selecting paper types may make no noticeable difference, it depends on
what the printer does with the information, it could affect any of:
Changing dithering patterns, slightly changing distance between the
print head and the paper, changing drying times, which inks it uses,
changing toner temperatures, simply selecting the right paper tray to
print from or too (e.g. cardstock requiring a straight through path),
offering/refusing double-sided printing, the range of print resolutions
it offers.
I distinctly hate having to deal with printers. Firstly you have to
get it working, which can be a nightmare, even on their supported OSs.
A year or two after getting one you may find it impossible to get ink
or toner, or it's become ridiculously expensive. Or they only supplied
a badly working driver for an old OS that can't be used on a newer one.
If I select the "high" resolution which Photoshop Elements says is 600
dpi, the output on Matt Photo Paper is vastly different to the output on
the Premium Glossy Photo Paper, the Glossy Photo Paper output is
significantly better even though the printer is not actually a photo
printer. Switching between the different quality papers makes a
difference to the quality of the output but not the resoluton.
regards,
Steve
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