Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 125850
No colour print output when using postscript printer driver on OS/2
Last modified: 2016-12-31 15:33:16 UTC
When printing a document containing coloured text from Writer the coloured text is printed in greyscale. The same document printed from OpenOffice 1.1.5 Writer prints in colour. This suggests there is probably something wrong with the printer output from AOO4.1.1 My printer is an Epson Stylus Photo RX585 which is a raster printer. I am using the OS/2 ports of cups2.0, ghostscript9.15 and gutenprint5.2.10 as my raster-to-postscript-to pdf-to-raster printer "driver". I posted the problem on an OS/2 specific forum and had a response that suggests the problem is within the postscript output generated by AOO4.1.1; the response stated that they had encountered the same problem but when they switched the printer driver in use to a driver supplied in the IBM OS/2 Omni driver package there was no problem printing in colour. The IBM OS/2 Omni driver is a raster printer driver and, sadly, is too old to support my printer but the cups "driver" works well for all other apps that I print from. Here is the OS/2 forum discussion response mentioned above http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=474.msg5388#msg5388 - scroll up 1 post to see my post. I do suspect that this is an OS/2 specific problem.
I have added 2 attachments:- OO4_EpsonRX585.PS - the result of using Print to File from AOO4.1.1 Writer; this is the output that prints colour in greyscale OO115_EpsonRX585.PS - the result of using Print to File from OO1.1.5 Writer; this is the output that prints colour in colour
Created attachment 84201 [details] Postscript output from OO1.1.5 that prints in colour
Sorry, I have tried adding the attachment OO4_EpsonRX585.PS but bugzilla will not let me. I have emailed the bugzilla admin about this problem and hopefully it will get resolved soon
Created attachment 84207 [details] Postscript output from AOO4.1.1 that prints in greYscale instead of colour
I tested it here, and I discovered that AOO inverts the COLOR setting in the EFFECTS tab (printer job properties). RGB color produces a B/W output and viceversa. Could you verify on your installation?
I tested by printing the same document with printer job properties, effects set to Grayscale and I can confirm that colour text printed OK.
Closing this ticket since it is a driver issue.
I'm not sure that I fully understand the "it is a driver issue" comment. AOO4.1.1 is the *only* application that does not print in colour when RGB Color is selected suggesting that the problem is within the AOO4.1.1 generated postscript output...
AOO is probably the only application honoring color and black/white output. The problem is, that the driver inverses those 2 values. You also see that when you look at the picture beside your color, black/white selection. It seems that it's only a problem with the ecups driver. We are in contact with the one who provides this driver.
If I understand you correctly every OS/2 application that prints in colour does so by accident? - including OO3.1.1 and OO3.2.0 I am using PSPRINT.DRV - a build based on ecups.drv which fixes some ecups.drv problems - from http://www.altsan.org/os2/printing/index.html#psprint so I will let Alex, author of psprint, know about this problem
Could you be more specific about what you believe the driver does wrong? Certainly I have not experienced any trouble with PSPRINT.DRV printing in colour vs greyscale from other applications.
It seems that current postscript driver uses color only for first entry of Color setting in Effects tab. You can fix the driver issue yourself: grab X:\cups\etc\cups\ppd\RX585.ppd and look for *ColorModel Gray/Grayscale: "<</cupsColorSpace 0/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel Black/Inverted Grayscale: "<</cupsColorSpace 3/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel RGB/RGB Color: "<</cupsColorSpace 1/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel CMY/CMY Color: "<</cupsColorSpace 4/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel CMYK/CMYK: "<</cupsColorSpace 6/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel KCMY/KCMY: "<</cupsColorSpace 8/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" reorder with RGB first *ColorModel RGB/RGB Color: "<</cupsColorSpace 1/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel Gray/Grayscale: "<</cupsColorSpace 0/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel Black/Inverted Grayscale: "<</cupsColorSpace 3/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel CMY/CMY Color: "<</cupsColorSpace 4/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel CMYK/CMYK: "<</cupsColorSpace 6/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" *ColorModel KCMY/KCMY: "<</cupsColorSpace 8/cupsColorOrder 0/cupsBitsPerColor 8/cupsPreferredBitsPerColor 16>>setpagedevice" and import the PPD again (see instructions included with Alex Taylor PSPRINT driver).
I added a test fix to PSPRINT, build is here: http://www.altsan.org/os2/printing/psprint-test-141203.zip (This addresses the actual printing - I have not yet added a fix for correctly updating the icon on the settings dialog.) Pete reports that it appears to work for him. For full testing this should be tried on as many different printers which have "ColorModel" in the PPD as possible. What this code does is check for the existence of "ColorModel" and simply sets the colour flag to always be TRUE in that case - the idea being that the printer itself will handle any colour mode conversion.