New high quality print drivers released - RISC OS News, Software and Information

New high quality print drivers released

Published: 11th Mar 2007, 15:09:59GMT Source: drobe.co.uk
By the Drobe news desk

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MW Software has released a new set of high quality printer drivers ported from the Gutenprint project. Formerly known as Gimp-Print, the software is said to support at least 750 printer models, and Epson inkjet devices in particular.

MW Software's Martin Wuerthner announced this week that he had ported the latest stable version of the Gutenprint drivers, which will require RISC OS 3.5 or higher. The drivers work with any application that prints via the standard RISC OS printing system - such as Draw, ArtWorks, Ovation Pro, and Impression.

Martin said: "Gutenprint, formerly named Gimp-Print, is a suite of printer drivers that provide high quality printing for Unix, Mac OS and Linux systems.

"In many cases these drivers equal or exceed proprietary vendor-supplied drivers in quality and functionality, and can be used for demanding printing tasks requiring flexibility and high quality."

It is understood Gutenprint supports many more new printers compared to the previous Gimp-Print port, and its output is of a higher quality. Gutenprint also supports a number of new printer features, including 'borderless' printing for some Epson models. The drivers also support different media types, such as plain paper and glossy photo paper, and allow the user to fine-tune the colour output of the printer.

The software is available to anyone generous enough to bung Martin a 20 to 30 quid donation for his work, £15 for existing Gimp-Print port users, or 10 quid for hard up punters. An XScale or ARM9-powered computer with at least 64M of RAM is recommended, although Martin warned that "even on the fastest RISC OS machines, Gutenprint is rather slow when printing at the highest quality settings."

Links
RISC OS port of Gutenprint - supported models list

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rmac (+2.1) 11/3/07 10:00PM	Have paid my money and can't wait to try it. Thanks to all involved in the project. Another positive move for RISC OS.
lym (+2.1) 11/3/07 10:11PM	Excellent news. I'd be interested to know if the potential opening-up of the !Printers source (to RO5) has any implications for this porting effort, given the work Martin has done to integrate Gutenprint into the RISC OS Desktop. Since my A9 still can't print (AFAIK), I can't take advantage of it just at the moment. However, I am eagerly awaiting the release of ArtWorks 2.7, when I will definitely be parting with some cash.
EasyKees (+1.0) 11/3/07 10:24PM	*In reply to lym:* The A9home can print - with Printers+ or the Castle printerdriver On my a9 I have 3 printers connected: HP color Laserjet 2600N (with Uniprint) HP color Laserjet 4550DN (with RPFS on a network and Paul Vigays modified Postscript driver for double sided printing) HP DeskJet930C (Printer+ -GIMP print on USB) The Castle printerdriver works 'out of the box' For Printers+ a few simple modifications are needed (32 bit modules)
Hairy (+2.1) 11/3/07 10:25PM	I too cant wait to download it. Just paid and waiting for password. Its very important to support this development by donation.
davehigton 12/3/07 7:26AM	*In reply to lym:* Why can't your A9 print? What printer(s) would you like to print to? Do you have other computers on your network that you would like to share the printer(s) with? Dave
lym (+0.1) 12/3/07 8:27AM	*In reply to EasyKees:* Ah - that's interesting. I assumed because RO 4.42 didn't appear to have printing support, I couldn't do it. But if the Castle drivers work, that's great. Thanks.
nx (+1.1) 12/3/07 2:33PM	Really great work by Mr W again. Nice one. nx
wuerthne (+1.0) 12/3/07 3:41PM	*In reply to rmac:* Sorry, the e-mail with the password that I sent to you bounced (something to do with SORBS blacklisting - I think SORBS has blacklisted my ISP, which is not a good idea, since it is one of the biggest web hosters for commercial sites in Germany, and your ISP does not accept e-mails from sites blacklisted by SORBS). I will try an alternative route, but this may take a bit. Please excuse the delay.
em2ac (+0.1) 12/3/07 7:33PM	*In reply to Martin:* Fantastic news I have an R200 which works fine, but the R800 was not supported! When I get a job, I will drop some money off!
AW (+1.0) 14/3/07 8:55PM	Is there any chance of it becoming any faster? I use Easiwriter with a HP printer - is that supported?
2307 (+1.0) 14/3/07 9:06PM	In reply to AW why not follow the link. There are dozens of HP printers that are supported. I was particuarly pleased to find my Samsung ML4600 works well with Gutenprint. Much better than the Ghostprint system. It is a tad slow at times, but I find that I'm wasting far less paper now, as previous attempts with various drivers have resulted in garbage being churned out (for no apparent reason). Touch wood since GP has been installed I haven't I one problem. Well done Martin for another brilliant product.
wuerthne (+1.0) 15/3/07 6:37AM	*In reply to AW:* Sorry, the only ways to make it faster are to buy a faster machine and to reduce the printing resolution or quality settings. The core Gutenprint engine simply requires a lot of memory and processing power and there is nothing that can be done about that.
hzn (+1.0) 15/3/07 6:26PM	Amazing: Even my HP LaserJet 8100DN is supported - amazing since it is a Poscript printer and thus I didn't expect the need for Gutenprint to support it. With Gutenprint I can even select the source paper tray and the duplex option. Works like a treat!