From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 17 13:57:40 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E01F7106566B for ; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:57:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 997D08FC1E for ; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:57:40 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-127-244.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.127.244]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 165503C8B9; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:57:38 +0100 (CET) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id q1HDvcNo010964; Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:57:38 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:57:38 +0100 From: Polytropon To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-Id: <20120217145738.f211687f.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <4F3E572D.6060502@herveybayaustralia.com.au> References: <20120211231729.d4ad2f8d.freebsd@edvax.de> <20120212083327.0a3b5c52@scorpio> <4F37CBC2.7060609@herveybayaustralia.com.au> <20120212100038.412369e7@scorpio> <20120217141447.b99dda33.freebsd@edvax.de> <4F3E572D.6060502@herveybayaustralia.com.au> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Da Rock Subject: Re: MFC 7840W under CUPS X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:57:41 -0000 On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:33:33 +1000, Da Rock wrote: > PDF is not exactly PS, but it does use a subset of the instructions. That's correct, but both formats share essential parts of functionality. Conversion between them is relatively easy. > The other thing you will notice is that its mostly on MFC's, so I > believe they're using the PS chipset to encode a scanned doc to PDF; I'm > not sure it works the other way around, and I may even be wrong about > what they're doing but I think it is very suspect. Yes, PDF output of scanned documents (even multi-page ones) seems to be standard today (which is mostly a welcome solution for storing and re-printing scanned documents). > A PS chipset is only an interpreter - it cannot normally encode PS, only > read a PS stream and rasterise it. But they may have extended it in only > this case. As for printing PDF, maybe... time will only tell. I held a short lecture about PS many years ago. If I remember my own words correctly, the PS "circuit" in a printer is a little processor complex that processes the PS "programming language" to do rasterization (from vector data or embedded pixel objects), it could do calculations, some transformations (like rotation), some other functions (like repeating the output n times, use or not use the duplexer etc. depending on the printer's hardware). If this facility could be used to generate data and send it back through the network interface, or keep it in local storage so network access can "pick it up" (e. g. by FTP, NFS, CIFS/SMB), things would be easy as those mechanisms can be kept internally in the printer without requiring arbitrary "drivers" to make things work. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...