Sometimes, I think Zawinski just might be right.

[Paul Lussier]

Jason Stephenson <jason at sigio.com> writes:

> Why is printing such a pain? [...] The only platform where I've
> never had any real problems printing: the Macintosh.

Heh, you haven't tried too hard.  Try hard coding a printer into the
Mac's printer config for a remote printer using a CUPS based IPP URL,
e.g.:

    http://print-server/printers/hplaserjet

Unless they (CUPS developers) have fixed this recently, what you'll
end up with is N^2 copies of your printouts when N > 1.  The reason
for this is that the Mac uses a local CUPS server which essentially
creates a for-loop around the number of requests and includes the
number of copies requested.  The remote CUPS server receives each
request, along with the number of copies requested, and complies :)

What you end up with is a lot of wasted paper and ink!

> If I try to print from Abiword, something is created and sent to my
> printer, but my printer just sits there blinking its light for five
> minutes or so before giving up.
>
> If I have Abiword print to a postscript file, the same thing happens
> if I try to print the postscript. If I run it through ghostscript,
> there are errors.
>
> If I convert Abiword's postscript output to PDF and try to print the
> PDF, I get the same result as if I hadn't converted it. I can view it
> just fine in xpdf, but it won't print from xpdf nor from ghostscript.
>
> The trouble isn't my printer, nor its configuration.
[...]
> I'm somewhat inclined to blame fontconfig, but I'm not sure, really.

I'm more inclined to blame AbiWord...  It sounds like it's generating
bad postscript.  Especially since it sounds like you can't even export
to PS and open it with a ps application (incidently, did you try using
gv or ghostview rather than xpdf?).

> Now, the question is, do I go to the bother of installing Open Office
> just because I occasionally need to print some word processed
> document? Or, do I just redo everything in TeX?

Depends upon what you want?  If you know TeX pretty well, it may well
be a lot faster.  I find OO to be a pain when you need to do any
heavy-duty formatting.  I keep my resume in text and in PDF.  I use
LyX to create the PDF from the LaTeX which LyX exports.  I tried
migrating to OO, and it didn't pass my 30-min. test (after 30 min. of
fighting with OO, I still didn't have a decent layout of my resume!).

Of course, LyX isn't without it's frustrations either.  It's often
difficult to change a default template without knowing how to hack the
LaTeX code...

> Right now, I'm inclined to ask, along with Jamie Zawinski, "What year
> is this?" Why is this stuff such a pain, and do I really want to put
> up with this?

One solution is to not print. I find I waste significantly less paper
and ink that way :)
-- 

Seeya,
Paul