no A4 printing

Problems and successes with specific brands/models of printers
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vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#1 Post by vivane »

Hallo,

configuring via CUPS wizard went just fine, BUT: every time I try printing nothing happens besides an error message on the printer's (HP laserjet 4) display like "load paper letter" although the CUPS printer's configuration states correctly "media size A 4".

What am I supposed to do? help! many thanks
Viviane

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rcrsn51
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Location: Stratford, Ontario

#2 Post by rcrsn51 »

I would check the application from which you are printing. Is its default paper size Letter or A4? This setting may be over-riding the default set in CUPS.

Can you print a test page from CUPS?

vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#3 Post by vivane »

Hallo & thanks,

about the test page: I forgot to mention that the test page was printed in A4 size BUT afterwards the error occured each time.

No it's not some interfering printer setting because I'm using windows xp on the other partition of the laptop and it's working just fine. Sorry to say ... somehow it's the pup's doing ....

any more ideas? Thanks again
Viviane

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rcrsn51
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Location: Stratford, Ontario

#4 Post by rcrsn51 »

What program(s) are you printing from that are causing the problem? If you check the printer properties from within the program, what is the paper size?

Your printer also has a default paper size in its own internal settings. How is it set?

vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#5 Post by vivane »

Hi again,

the program I'm trying to print from is abiword - same as from windows which works perfectly.

And I guess the printer's default setting is A4 because I never had any problems before ... or is there any way to check this elusive default setting??? I must admit to being an absolute non-geek used to happily stumbling around on the windows surface ... the pup was a present I gave to myself for x-mas ....

many thanks
Viviane

vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#6 Post by vivane »

Hi again,

checked both settings: the printer's default is A4, when the paper tray's empty the display reads "no paper,load A4" BUT the moment the printing job gets transfered from abiword the message changes to "load letter". The setting within abiword mirrors that of CUPS, recognizing correctly the printer PLUS paper format A4.

Where does it take the wrong turn???

Help, thanks
Viviane

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rcrsn51
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#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

Abiword has a default template. Check under File > Page Setup. What is the paper size there?

vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#8 Post by vivane »

forgot to mention I already checked this too ... A4...

thanks
Viviane

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rcrsn51
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Location: Stratford, Ontario

#9 Post by rcrsn51 »

If you look in the CUPS config for "Media Source", what tray is it set for? I believe that the manual feed is 1 and the paper cassette is 2.

vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#10 Post by vivane »

... it's tray 1 .... bad news or good?

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rcrsn51
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#11 Post by rcrsn51 »

If the default setting in CUPS is to send the print job to the manual feed tray, then your Load Letter message is asking you to put paper in that location.

So either put some paper in the manual feed tray and see what happens or change the CUPS setting to Tray 2.

vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#12 Post by vivane »

well - guess what I'm doing since day one? Putting paper in the tray and - nothing happens because it's size A4 and the pup doesn't feed on it, like my Siamese it's quite partial to it's dinner and demands - letter ...

changing the setting from tray one to two, will do tomorrow morning, the printers's in the next room, I'll keep you posted

thanks for your patience
good night from Switzerland
Viviane

vivane
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat 10 Jan 2009, 08:37
Location: switzerland

no A4 printing

#13 Post by vivane »

Good morning,

didn't work. Although along the way a longtime riddle was answered...

After I changed the setting to tray 2 the manual feed thingy didn't work plus the error message stayed the same "load letter". Then I tried out some more options "standard", "manual" and "automatic" to no avail but getting a different error message on the printer's display at one step "mz load letter" meaning - I believe - manuelle Zufuhr" something like "manual feed" instead of "pk load letter" what I think mens "Papier Kassette" (paper cassette" (I've been wondering for years now about this "pk" thing whenever the papertray was empty... now I know but that doesn't solve the format problem. But it's nice to get SOME answer ha-ha).http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/images/icons/icon9.gif

That was it about the tray option (I'll reset the default option "tray 1" ?).

Another stone still left unturned???
Thanks again...
Viviane

kavi
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon 16 Feb 2009, 08:01

Re:no A4 printing

#14 Post by kavi »

If you look in the CUPS config for "Media Source", what tray is it set for? I believe that the manual feed is 1 and the paper cassette is 2.





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konso
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu 18 Jun 2009, 09:58

Same problem

#15 Post by konso »

Hi,

I have almost the same problem. Here's my setup:

-Printer is HP Color Laserjet 3700dn, using network interface
-Printer installed with CUPS, using "HP Color LaserJet Series PCL 6 CUPS" driver. Test page prints fine (A4)
-Printer CUPS settings are as follows:
* Media Size: A4
* Media Source: Tray 2
* Output Mode: Grayscale
* Output Resolution: 600dpi
* Double-Sided Printing: Off

I'm trying to print a PDF document opened from Seamonkey using PDF Viewer 0.1.7. Page settings in PDF Viewer are as follows:
* Paper Size: A4
* Orientation: Portrait
* Layout: Plain
* Mode: Grayscale
* Resolution: 600dpi

The PDF document is an A4 document.

However, when I try to print it out, my printer says "LOAD TRAY 1 PLAIN LETTER". At this point I can manually override the paper source from the printer. If I do this, the page prints out as letter printed on A4 (and with color as well, even though I have set it to print grayscale).

This is a big problem, as the only thing I need from the computer I have puppy installed on is to print A4 PDF files (receipts to my customers).

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rcrsn51
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#16 Post by rcrsn51 »

Can you print an A4 document correctly from another application, like Abiword?

konso
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Joined: Thu 18 Jun 2009, 09:58

#17 Post by konso »

Can you print an A4 document correctly from another application, like Abiword?
Nope, exactly the same with Abiword. Page size in Abiword is set to A4, both in page properties and in the Print window.

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rcrsn51
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#18 Post by rcrsn51 »

What happens if you actually load some A4 paper into Tray 1 - the multipurpose feeder?

When you bring up the printing dialog in Abiword, there is a Paper tab that lets you set the tray. Did you use this?

There have to be people in this world who use A4 paper on HP printers and get this to work!

differential
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu 26 Jan 2006, 05:36
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Similar Problems

#19 Post by differential »

I have been using Puppy 4.1.2 on a Compaq Armada M700 and using an HP 4 Plus printer for some time and have had problems getting the printer to stop asking for letter ie LOAD LETTER.

I found an atricle by Mr Toad entitled "At last - the solution for printing to A4 on my Laserjet III" which dealt with this problem and suggested among other things the following:

in a text editor open the file /usr/share/ghostscript/8.51/lib/gs-init.ps
and uncom8.51ment the line % /DEFAULTPAPERSIZE (a4) def - do this by removing /
the % symbol at the beginning *and* the space next to it. This is the
really important change!

It worked for me but does so no longer. All it does now is to stop printing completely. Very frustrating!

This may be of help. I would love a solution to this problem. It has caused me many wasted hours.

Russell

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rcrsn51
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Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#20 Post by rcrsn51 »

@differential: Mr. Toad's fix sounds the most reasonable. It suggests that ghostscript ignores the A4 setting information provided by the application and formats the print job as Letter size. Since the printer's default setting is A4, it prompts the operator to load some letter paper.

Unfortunately, the fact that this fix stopped working for you leaves it up in the air. Are there any other A4 users out there with old Laserjets that can confirm this?

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