README.txt - 11/21/2001 - CUPS Drivers based on Gutenprint ---------------------------------------------------------- This file describes the CUPS drivers based on the Gutenprint project. Note: to use these drivers you must have CUPS 1.1.9 or higher. We recommend use of CUPS 1.1.12 or higher. All code is Copyright 1997-2001 by Easy Software Products and/or the Gutenprint project and is provided under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The licensing details are provided in the file "LICENSE.txt". INTRODUCTION The CUPS drivers contain all of the files needed to support photo-quality printing on any printer supported by the Gutenprint project. You can find out more about the Common UNIX Printing System ("CUPS"), an IPP-based printing system for UNIX/Linux, at: http://www.cups.org WHY DRIVERS FOR CUPS? CUPS is designed from the ground up to support printing to modern printers. In order to support as many applications as possible, CUPS provides a PostScript RIP (currently based on GNU GhostScript 5.50) as well as an image file RIP and many file filters that handle conversion of files to a format usable by a printer driver. The filter interface is extensible to support new types of files that can be printed (e.g. a GNOME metafile, etc.) All of this filtering happens "behind the scenes" so is transparent to the user. In addition, CUPS uses PostScript Printer Description ("PPD") files to describe printers, allowing applications to see the available printer features and capabilities easily. The CUPS PPD files add a few additional attributes to the standard PPD specification to support printing to non-PS printers. WHAT TOOLS ARE INCLUDED? We provide two tools for making CUPS drivers. The first is called "cups-calibrate" which allows you to do super-simple color calibration of your printer drivers. It is an interactive program that prints several calibration images through your driver until a final profile is produced. The second is called "genppd" which generates PPD files. These PPD files are created in several languages. The program reads printer driver information from the Gutenprint driver database and produces a PPD file for each driver. Normally, users do not have to use this tool directly; it is run automatically in the build process. WHAT DRIVERS ARE INCLUDED? We support all of the Gutenprint drivers supported by the project. The Canon and EPSON drivers also support simple printer commands to do head cleaning, test prints, and alignment, as well as an EPSON-specific backend that provides ink level information to the user. The printer drivers in this distribution are so-called "raster" printer drivers. This means that they receive a stream of images, one per page, that contain all of the colors, etc. for the printer. The printer driver then only needs to convert this to the appropriate printer commands and raster data to get a printed page. We also have a new experimental interface for printer commands using CUPS printer command files - ASCII text files with printer commands in them. This allows you to do a head cleaning, align the print heads, etc. WHAT SOFTWARE DO I NEED? Currently, CUPS 1.1.9 or higher is required, as is an ANSI C compliant compiler like GCC. The code has been tested on a number of vendor compilers and should be quite portable. HOW DO I START USING THESE DRIVERS? Please read the README file at top level. WHO DO I CONTACT TO GET HELP? For support issues, you should contact gimp-print-devel@sourceforge.net, the developer mailing list for the Gutenprint project in general. The primary author of this driver is Michael Sweet of Easy Software Products (mike@easysw.com). Mike is also the main developer for CUPS. Please don't expect an instant response (or even a response within a week) as Mike often accumulates a backlog of 100 or more messages each day. COMMERCIAL SUPPORT Easy Software Products provides commercial support for all of its printing products. Please see our web site for more information: http://www.easysw.com LEGAL STUFF CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System, and the CUPS logo are the trademark property of Easy Software Products. Please see the CUPS software license for the terms of its use.