Gutenprint 5.0.0 review
DownloadGutenprint, formerly named Gimp-Print, is a suite of printer drivers that may be used with most common UNIX print spooling systems, including CUPS, lpr, LPRng, or others.
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Gutenprint, formerly named Gimp-Print, is a suite of printer drivers that may be used with most common UNIX print spooling systems, including CUPS, lpr, LPRng, or others.
These drivers provide high quality printing for UNIX (including Macintosh OS X 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4) and Linux systems that in many cases equal or exceed proprietary vendor-supplied drivers in quality and functionality, and can be used for demanding printing tasks requiring flexibility and high quality. This software package includes the Print plug-in for the GIMP and Ghostscript and CUPS drivers, as well as Foomatic data.
Gutenprint provides a very high quality package of printer drivers for Ghostscript and CUPS.
To install the drivers please read the “Setting up printers” PDF which is included with the download.
What's New:
A serious problem with margins when printing from CUPS in some cases was introduced in Gutenprint 5.0.0-rc3. The symptoms are that when printing certain kinds of material on certain printers, the print is positioned incorrectly on the page (too far to the right and too far down the page). This problem has been fixed.
The Ghostscript driver used with Foomatic now prints all pages of a document correctly. Previously it did not print any page except the first page of a document, or printed all other pages with possibly incorrect settings (bug 1501816).
A new user's manual has been added in doc/gutenprint-users-manual.odt (ODF format) and doc/gutenprint-users-manual.pdf, replacing the old manual that was based on Gimp-Print 4.2 (bug 1260142).
The Postscript driver now handles PPD files with non-integer imageable areas correctly in all locales (the PPD files certain HP inkjet printers using the HPIJS driver have non-integer imageable areas for some paper sizes). In 5.0.0-rc3, this was handled incorrectly in locales that do not use the decimal point (".") for separating fractions from integers.
The PPD file parameter is now always accessible when using the Postscript driver in third party Gutenprint-enabled applications. This was not an issue with the enhanced Print plugin for the GIMP.
The Epson driver now chooses unidirectional vs. bidirectional mode more intelligently on new printers that are capable of producing excellent quality in bidirectional mode at high resolutions. This improves printing speed with the default settings in certain cases and in some cases improves print quality.
The Epson driver offers the same quality choices as 5.0.0-rc2 for certain new printers such as the R800, R1800, and R2400. Certain quality choices (in particular Super Photo and Ultra Photo) were not available in 5.0.0-rc3.
Various minor problems in the PPD files have been fixed. The most notable change is that the names of the option groups have been shortened so that they are shorter than 40 characters in all cases except for one case in French.
The French, Danish, Hungarian, and Swedish translations have been updated.
In the GIMP 2.4 and above (forthcoming as of Gutenprint 5.0 release), the enhanced Print plugin will be named "Print with Gutenprint" so as not to collide with the GtkPrint-based plugin bundled with that version of the GIMP. The Print plugin bundled with GIMP 2.0 and 2.2 is based on Gimp-Print 4.2; the Print plugin in this package simply replaces the Print plugin in those versions of the GIMP (related to bug 1444700).
Crashes in the Ghostscript and IJS drivers on certain non-Linux platforms have been fixed (bug 1518126).
A problem with margins with A4 paper on Kyocera printers has been fixed (bug 1518131).
A problem with the preview in the GIMP 1.2 plugin (which also affects Cinepaint) not being updated properly if orientation changes has been fixed.
A problem with Foomatic data generation in certain locales has been fixed (bug 1033007).
The Epson Stylus Photo R800 and R1800 now print closer to the bottom edge of the page.
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