On Fri, Sep 06, 2002 at 06:33:59AM -0600, Herb Peyerl wrote:
> Wojciech Puchar <wojtek@chylonia.3miasto.net>wrote:
>> is it REALLY have to be postscript printer? can't you buy any
>> printer which ghostscript can use and
>> define in /etc/printcap?
>>
>> HP Laserjets are generally good choice, and comes both with and without
>> postscript (and with big price difference)
>
> You clearly have never actually _tried_ to do this.  'Ghostscript' is so
> useless, it can't even convert a Word document containing the word 'testing'
> in 12 point courier font.    This most recently verified using my wife's
> OSX box running MS Office-OSX printing via 'lpr' using the "Generic PPD"
> to a Laserjet print queue on my NetBSD box that pipes the job through
> ghostscript to our Laserjet 1100.

Actually, I've been using this method for years, granted, never
with an OS X client.

Printouts from Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, all work fine with
gs converting to my HP inkjet, my old Brother HL 1040, even an
Epson dot matrix.  I even have appletalk installed so I can print
from my 68k Mac running System 7.5 and my ex-roommate's OS8 powermac.

These days, my print/ghostscrpit server is running Linux though,
since HP has released native drivers for their line of printers
for Linux.

> I think the only Postscript that ghostscript can successfully parse is
> "showpage".

I've run significantly more complex PS than sohwpage through gs
with few problems.  The driver you're using on your OSX system
might be the culprit here, have you tried using something more like
the Apple Laserwriter Select 360?  It's the driver I've had the
most luck with classic Macs as clients.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson@bl.org