[Ubuntu-US-CA] Slow printing to Laser Printer with Ubuntu

Thu May 19 19:21:44 UTC 2011

Typically laser printers function with built in ram to cache print jobs. Have you considered increasing the ram on your laser printer? Are you using a print server, network connected or basic usb set up? If a network printer, what is the size of the packets you are sending? Look into network issues, hardware and test with other linux distros to see if you can isolate the issue to either hardware, the specific ubuntu distro or other software (ie. Drivers) related issues. Just my two cents.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Lewis <bob.l.lewis at gmail.com>
Sender: ubuntu-us-ca-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 07:41:30 
To: Ubuntu US California<ubuntu-us-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
Reply-To: bob.l.lewis at gmail.com,
	Ubuntu US California <ubuntu-us-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: [Ubuntu-US-CA] Slow printing to Laser Printer with Ubuntu

I appreciate the feedback and comments.

I choose a very simple pdf to do timing tests as I didn't want to sit
around for days accumulating the data.   Other printing can take an hour
or more to output while the light blinks indicating data is being received.
I will be very happy with the 22-seconds providing others can tolerate
the very light reduced printing quality.

I haven't as yet tried contacting HP but I have contacted the Ubuntu
cups printing team and have not heard back as yet.

HPLIP Toolbox is installed on my machine but it only recognizes and deals
with my HP Photosmart Ink Jet printer where printing quality is good and
fast for same job but costs a lot more to operate.

Cheers,
Bob
---

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 7:31 AM, Mr. Andrzejak <mrandrzejak at gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting data. At my biz we are all happy enough with 20 seconds instead
> of 2 or 3 minutes (or more). One thing I found interesting is this seems to
> be a common HP related occurrence. Have you tried contacting them? We too
> use a Laserjet 1200 for the accountant and for bigger tasks, the rest of the
> biz sends print jobs direct to our HP Laserjet M2727. Also have you tried
> installing the HPLIP Tollbox (hplip-gui)? This might give you more options
> in the settings. We use this so SimpleScan will recognize the scanning
> feature on the M2727.
> Best - Dave
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 7:24 AM, Robert Lewis <bob.l.lewis at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I have tried all of this on a simple pdf file before and include my timing
>> figures for reference.   The print is a lot lighter choosing gutenprint
>> but may
>> be acceptable.  Time will tell.  One issues is that the very slow
>> printing is the
>> default for Ubuntu but on Microsoft the default printing has good quality
>> on Microsoft and fast.   I think this is an excellent work around but that
>> we
>> still have a problem that needs addressing for most.  All of these were
>> done with 10.10.   However, I tried using the default driver at the top on
>> 11.04 and the number went worse than on 10.10 to 2min 20sec.
>> Here is my chart:
>>  SLOW - HP LaserJet 1200 Foomatic/pxlmono [en] (recommended) 1-min 35 sec
>> TESTING - HP LaserJet 1200 ] Postscript [en] (recommended)  2-min 7 sec
>> HP LaserJet 1200 hpijs pcl3, 3.10.6 [en]                    58-sec but
>> lite
>> HP LaserJet 1200 pcl3, hpcups 3.10.6 [en]                   45-sec a
>> little lite
>> HP LaserJet 1200 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.6 Simplified [en]   21-sec a
>> little lite
>> HP LaserJet 1200 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.6 [en]              22-sec a
>> little lite
>> HP LaserJet 1200 Foomatic/Postscript [en]                   2-min 10 sec
>> HP LaserJet 1200 Foomatic/lj4dith [en]                      1-min 8 sec
>> HP LaserJet 1200 Foomatic/lj5gray [en]
>> Error-ExtraData
>>            Then went on and took a long time after printing error page
>> HP LaserJet 1200 Foomatic/ljet4 [en]                        Job died
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 10:51 PM, Mr. Andrzejak <mrandrzejak at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi Bob! Ive had the same problem at work. We have blueprints in PDF that
>> > are large files, or manuals that need to be printed and it almost feels like
>> > the print job gets bottlenecked somewhere. Documents either take forever to
>> > print, or never print at all. Ive found a couple of solutions that have
>> > worked perfectly for me. Usually method #1 solves the issue whenever I run
>> > into it.
>> > #1 - You need to switch your drivers from a Postscript/Foomatic driver
>> > to a CUPS/Gutenprint driver. You can also try a PCL driver if its not
>> > installed automatically.
>> >
>> > To change your drivers to CUPS or PCL, go to "System > Administration >
>> > Printing" and then right click your printer giving you problems, and click
>> > "Properties". Click the "change" button to the right of Make and Model. It
>> > will then ask to change drivers. Now pick your printer brand (should already
>> > be selected) click forward, and then the model should be selected already
>> > also. To the right of the models list are the drivers. Here is where you
>> > want to select something different than the Postscript driver. That should
>> > do it!
>> >
>> > #2 - You can also go into your printer settings and select a lower DPI,
>> > possibly to a draft mode.
>> >
>> > To change the quality, again go to "System > Admin > Printing" and right
>> > click the printer you want to change the settings on. Click Properties.
>> > Click Printer Options in the list on the left and then look for Print
>> > Quality. My laser printer is set to normal, but you can also change this to
>> > "draft -economy" mode or "best" mode.
>> >
>> > Best Regards,
>> > David Andrews
>> > davidandrews at ubuntu.com
>> >
>> > On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Robert Lewis <bob.l.lewis at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> > >
>> > > I trying to help 3 people with the identical issue. One of them being
>> > > myself.
>> > > Printing large pdf files and also some web sites is painfully slow to
>> > > various brand and model laser printers.
>> > > When I try printing from (ugh) windows7 it is fast.
>> > >
>> > > The laser printer LED shows data being spooled to it and lpstat -t
>> > > shows the percentage of the job
>> > > being spooled (this is slow).  When it gets to 100% then the printer
>> > > does come on and print as expected.
>> > >
>> > > If I choose to print to an INK Jet color printer then that is
>> > > fast.     It is only Laser printers the slow behavior.
>> > >
>> > > I have tried with  various versions of Ubuntu including 11.04 all with
>> > > the same results.
>> > >
>> > > I am not looking for speculation as to how to resolve this but more
>> > > from others that have seen this
>> > > issue and have found a solution.
>> > >
>> > > Cheers,
>> > > Bob
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Sent from Ubuntu OS (ubuntu.com)
>>
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>
>
> --
> Sent from Ubuntu OS (ubuntu.com)
>

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