[PLUG] Brother HL-2240D ppd file?

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Sat Oct 29 15:23:24 UTC 2011


On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:00:21 -0700
"Wayne E. Van Loon Sr." <wevl at pacifier.com> dijo:

>> Have you considered setting it up as a generic PCL6 or PCL5e
>> printer?  You could probably use a PPD for a duplexing LaserJet
>> model (e.g. 5D). 

>Not only had I not considered it, I wasn't even aware such a
>possibility existed. I chose a HP driver with a d suffix,
>usr/share/cups/model/HP/hp-laserjet_p2015d_series-hpijs.ppd.gz, and it 
>prints, even duplex.

A very long time ago I had a Laserjet 4MV, which came with Postscript,
but no PPD file. I used the PPD file for a Linotronic 300 and it worked
fine. The Linotronic PPD file offered features that I couldn't use, but
it was otherwise perfectly functional. My point is that if you need a
PPD file, just find one for the most similar printer and it will work.

For that matter, a PPD file is just a plain text file, usually only a
couple pages long. You can just roll your own. I have not created my
own PPD file, but once I had to edit one, and it was trivial. That is,
it is trivial once you figure out the syntax. And even that is usually
pretty simple. For example, suppose your printer can do 600 dpi or 1200
dpi, but the PPD file only offers 600 dpi. You open the PPD file and
find a line that says (I am making this up) "DPI=600." So you add a
space plus "1200" at the end and try it. If it doesn't work, add a
comma. Or get several PPD files and open them up to see how they are
written. And once you have a good PPD file for the HL2240D, upload it
to the CUPS folks so that everyone can share.



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