[Novalug] peculiar printing problem

Bonnie Dalzell bdalzell@qis.net
Tue Dec 24 14:36:49 EST 2013


i have a brother printer and I am running Xubuntu based on Ubuntu 12.04 
(precise).

The brother printer plugs into the mac airport. my computer plugs into our 
DSL modem/router. so does the mac airport. the brother printer plugs into 
the mac airport.

  so my computer is getting to the brother printer via the connection to 
the airport but the entire path is via cable not wireless.

I have some pdf formatted files generated by  a program named PageStream 
which started out as an Amiga program. The version I have is a linux 
version.

mostly PageStream does not interact well with printers on linux but it 
does save documents out in pdf format so I use PageStream, save them as 
pdf and then print them from the linux pdf viewer called "Document Viewer" 
in my menu.

Yesterday I tried to print out one of the stored documents and it did not 
print and the printer information utility indicated that the printer was 
off line.

So i turned it off and back on  and tried printing the same document 
again and no results.

We tried printing from my husband's mac and the mac could not find the 
printer.

Well it was late and all the computers got turned off. The printer was 
also turned off and back on.

So this morning I had to print a simple text file from gedit and it 
printed fine.

Later on I tried to print the .pdf document and again the printer 
vanished from the mind of the computer.

So a period of eliminating things occurred.

All the cables are ok, incidentally.

I did delete and reinstall the printer from the printer management 
utility.

Just rebooting does not bring the printer back to the view of my computer, 
it has to be a "turn off both machines and turn them back on" process.

text, rtf and open office versions of the offending document print out 
fine.

putting the not-printable-from-xubuntu-computer pdf versions on a thumb 
drive and then printing them from the OSX Macintosh works ok.

so it appears that I have some pdf documents that must contain a command 
that turns off the connection to the printer under linux.

These are documents I generated locally with the linux version of 
PageStream, not anything I downloaded.

I am of course going to correspond with the PageStream development 
team about this but I wanted to ask if anyone else has encountered a 
problem with a pdf file that seems to be able to disconnect the printer 
electronically.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
mail:PO box 9767 Baldwin, MD, USA 21013  |  EMAIL:bdalzell@qis.net
shipping address:5100 Hydes Rd 21082 (Hydes Post Office closed Jan 2012)
Freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
HOME www.batw.net    ART bdalzellart.batw.net  BUSINESS www.boardingatwedge.com




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