Bug 691082

Summary: pxlcolor problem when printing characters after color change
Product: Ghostscript Reporter: Johann Höchtl <johann.hoechtl>
Component: PXL DriverAssignee: Michael Vrhel <michael.vrhel>
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME    
Severity: normal CC: till.kamppeter
Priority: P4    
Version: 8.70   
Hardware: PC   
OS: Linux   
URL: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ghostscript/+bug/505423
Customer: Word Size: ---
Attachments: OpenOffice source with various fonts
PCLPrintF.png
PCLPrintOK.png
Colorbug.odt

Description Johann Höchtl 2010-01-21 23:37:06 UTC
pxlcolor problem when printing characters after color change

Please see the description on launchpad

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ghostscript/+bug/505423
Comment 1 Hin-Tak Leung 2010-01-22 08:53:56 UTC
I'll have to try this out with a real printer - ghostpdl doesn't not show any
problem with gs 8.70's pxlcolor output. So it is either a firmware bug with
your's printer's PCL XL implementation or two bugs in the ghostscript/ghostpdl
family - one for pxl code generation and one for rendering. The latter is a bit
unlikely though.
Comment 2 Johann Höchtl 2010-01-29 12:20:50 UTC
Created attachment 5917 [details]
OpenOffice source with various fonts
Comment 3 Johann Höchtl 2010-01-29 12:22:21 UTC
Created attachment 5918 [details]
PCLPrintF.png

This is the scan of the actually printed out PDF depicting the printing problem
Comment 4 Johann Höchtl 2010-01-29 12:22:52 UTC
Created attachment 5919 [details]
PCLPrintOK.png

This is the print out as it is intended to be
Comment 5 Johann Höchtl 2010-01-29 12:27:36 UTC
I tried various combinations of printer-built in fonts, type1 vs. ttf fonts etc.
but it the problem is entirely size related. When using commonly used font sizes
like 10, 11, 12, 14, 16 everything prints fine, but as soon the fonts size
exceeds a certain size, characters after a color change are either not printed
at all or in a wrong color.

See the attached files.
Comment 6 Johann Höchtl 2010-01-29 12:28:33 UTC
Created attachment 5920 [details]
Colorbug.odt

Source file with type1, ttf and otf (outline) fonts. The problem is only font
size related.
Comment 7 Johann Höchtl 2010-01-29 12:29:58 UTC
Please note that while it's a Samsung color printer it uses the PCL 6 driver on
Windows as the default printing language instead of proprietary SPL
Comment 8 Hin-Tak Leung 2010-01-29 13:42:02 UTC
All those openoffice, etc docs are irrelevant - the only way you can get anybody
(most probably me, since *if* it is a problem, it would be under 'PXL driver'
which belongs to me rather than 'color' which belongs to Michael, but I suspect
firmware) to deal with it is if you can reproduce the problem by-passing
openoffice/cups, etc , and *preferably with a HP printer*, with this sequence of
action: e.g. with a pdf or a ps file, 
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/37672963/Leseblatt.pdf

gs -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pxlcolor -o /tmp/file.pxl Leseblatt.pdf
cat /tmp/file.pxl > /dev/usb/lp0
(or wherever your printer port is).

If you can reproduce the problem this way, please attach /tmp/file.pxl .
Comment 9 Johann Höchtl 2010-02-07 23:52:26 UTC
This is embarrassing. It obvously is my pritners firmware which is buggy. I
created the raw pcl-file as desribed and sent it to various PCL-capable color
printers in the office - they all print fine!

This bug can be closed ... buggy printer firmware of reporter.
Comment 10 Hin-Tak Leung 2010-02-08 01:05:19 UTC
Please close the downstream Ubuntu bug report as firmware bug with Samsung's
implementation of PCL XL as well. If the Samsung printer prints anything else
different from HP or others, we'd like to hear about it - Henry and et al may
make that into a business opportunity...
Comment 11 Till Kamppeter 2010-02-08 01:43:51 UTC
Downstream bug report is updated now, thank you for investigating this.