Print a postscript document with CUPS and a thermal printer

Question

I installed an epson TM-T20 in Ubuntu 12.04, using the official driver. This is a thermal printer, I'm using 80mm paper.

My problem: When I print an image (using a postscript document) it waste a lot of paper because the image uses around 5cm and the printer before the image sends out 25cm of white paper.

I use the following command to send the document to the printer:

lpr -P tm-t20 -o document.ps

The printer prints the image (a 200x200 image), but first sends out a lot of non printed paper.

The printer wasn't recognized by CUPS (using the web interface at localhost:631). Then I installed it using the following procedure:

sudo lpadmin -p tm-t20 -E -v serial:/dev/ttyUSB0 -P /usr/share/ppd/epson-tm-t20-rastertotmt.ppd 

Then the printer appeared in the CUPS web interface and I configured it (baud rate, bit parity, etc).

The printer works ok when I send some text.

Here is part of the printer ppd:

*DefaultPageRegion:RP80x297
*PageRegion RP80x297/Roll Paper 80 x 297 mm: "<</PageSize[204 841.8]/           ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"
*PageRegion RP58x297/Roll Paper 58 x 297 mm: "<</PageSize[141.7 841.8]/         ImagingBBox null>>setpagedevice"
*CloseUI: *PageRegion

*DefaultImageableArea: RP80x297
*ImageableArea RP80x297/Roll Paper 80 x 297 mm: "0 0 204 841.8"
*ImageableArea RP58x297/Roll Paper 58 x 297 mm: "0 0 141.7 841.8"

*DefaultPaperDimension: RP80x297
*PaperDimension RP80x297/Roll Paper 80 x 297 mm: "204 841.8"
*PaperDimension RP58x297/Roll Paper 58 x 297 mm: "141.7 841.8"

I suppose that this waste of paper is because the 297mm of long that appears in the ppd file. Then I tried adding another configuration of 100mm instead of 297mm, but the problem persists.

I also tryied adding the tag %%DocumentMedia to the ps file, but the same problem:

%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%Creator: GIMP PostScript file plugin V 1.17 by Peter Kirchgessner
%%Title: yay.ps
%%CreationDate: Thu Sep 13 13:44:26 2012
%%DocumentData: Clean7Bit
%%LanguageLevel: 2
%%Pages: 1
%%BoundingBox: 14 14 215 215
%%
%%EndComments
%%DocumentMedia: Plain 72 72 0 white Plain 
%%BeginProlog
% Use own dictionary to avoid conflicts
10 dict begin
%%EndProlog
%%Page: 1 1
% Translate for offset
14.173228346456694 14.173228346456694 translate
% Translate to begin of first scanline
0 199.99999999999997 translate
199.99999999999997 -199.99999999999997 scale
% Image geometry
200 200 8
% Transformation matrix
[ 200 0 0 200 0 0 ]
% Strings to hold RGB-samples per scanline
/rstr 200 string def
/gstr 200 string def
/bstr 200 string def
{currentfile /ASCII85Decode filter /RunLengthDecode filter rstr readstring pop}
{currentfile /ASCII85Decode filter /RunLengthDecode filter gstr readstring pop}
{currentfile /ASCII85Decode filter /RunLengthDecode filter bstr readstring pop}
true 3
%%BeginData:        14759 ASCII Bytes

Any idea?

Answer 1

Finally after a lot of pain. I discover that the problem was the serial to USB cable (in order to connect the serial printer to an USB port). I tried with two different serial to USB cables, but the problem persists and finally I conclude that The printer works erratically if is not connect to a "real" serial port. I tested the printer under identical conditions in a PC with a serial port and it works perfect, just installing the driver provided by epson and giving chmod 777 to /dev/ttyS0. At the job list sometimes I see the error: "/usr/lib/cups/filter/pstopdf failed". But the printer prints ok, like no error occurred.

Answer 2

I have to chmod 777 /dev/ttyUSB0 in order to get the printer working (Even if a run the commands with sudo).

I'm getting acceptable results (text is not at the center) with the option media=B8

lp -d tm-t20 -o media=B8 document.ps

I also tried with

  lp -d tm-t20 -o media=Custom.80x90mm document.ps

But the printer doesn't print and the job appears as completed at the cups web interface.

If I try with

lp -d tm-t20 -o media=Custom.200x190 document.ps

The printer prints (not correctly centered, I guess that I need to try with different values until I get the desired result). The paper dimensions in dots are in this site: http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/postscript/

The printer isn't cutting the paper, I dont know how to give that option (print and cut the paper).

The options accepted by the printer are:

lpoptions -p tm-t20 -l

PageSize/Media Size: *RP80x297 RP58x297 Custom.WIDTHxHEIGHT
Resolution/Resolution: *203x203dpi
TmtSpeed/Printing Speed: *Auto 1 2 3 4
TmtPaperReduction/Paper Reduction: Off Top *Bottom Both
TmtPaperSource/Paper Source: *DocFeedCut DocFeedNoCut DocNoFeedCut DocNoFeedNoCut PageFeedCut PageFeedNoCut PageNoFeedCut
TmtBuzzerControl/Buzzer: *Off Before After
TmtSoundPattern/Sound Pattern: *A B C D E
TmtBuzzerRepeat/Buzzer Repeat: *1 2 3 5
TmtDrawer1/Cash Drawer #1: *Off Before After

How to make the printer print and cut the paper? I need to do it from the console, to use it from a custom C++ program. If you have any other experience with this kinds of printers under Linux, please give me some advice. My goal is to use the printer from a C++ program, I didn't find a fast way to do it (sending directly ESC/POS commands to the printer, there isn't official documentation to do it under Linux), so I'm working with CUPS from the console.

Paper CUT SOLVED:

lp -d tm-t20 -o media=Custom.200x258 -o source=DocFeedCut document.ps

I don't know why it works, because as is shown in the options DocFeedCut is the default option.

Now I just will try to center correctly the text.