Have you ever tried printing a complex word-processing document or a Web page in Linux only to have it come out as complete garbage on your printer, with strange characters and all sorts of gobbledygook? That happens because some Linux programs, like Netscape, use PostScript, which is a page-description language that only some printers can understand and handle properly. Why is this so? Maybe this practice was inherited from old-style Unix publishing systems and Macintoshes, which use PostScript. Or maybe not.
Have you ever tried printing a complex word-processing document or a Web page in Linux only to have it come out as complete garbage on your printer, with strange characters and all sorts of gobbledygook? That happens because some Linux programs, like Netscape, use PostScript, which is a page-description language that only some printers can understand and handle properly. Why is this so? Maybe this practice was inherited from old-style Unix publishing systems and Macintoshes, which use PostScript. Or maybe not.
Odds are that there really isn’t a good explanation, and if there is one, it’s probably too complicated to cover in a column. Whatever the case, the bottom line is that if you want your documents to print perfectly, you have to make your applications and your printer talk the same lingo. And that, in turn, means you have to make one of them work in a language it does not normally understand.
To print PostScript documents with Linux, the stream of data intended for the printer must be re-directed to an open source PostScript interpreter program called Ghostscript, which then translates it to your printer’s native language. Different printer manufacturers use different native languages — HP LaserJet and LaserJet-compatible printers, for example, use a language called PCL, or Printer Control Language. Other manufacturers have different languages that their printers speak, but Ghostscript can translate PostScript, PDF, and TCL to most of them. Unfortunately, if you don’t have your system set up to filter PostScript…
Please log in to view this content.
Not Yet a Member?
Register with LinuxMagazine.com and get free access to the entire archive, including:
