🚀 go-pugleaf

jenr95@octarine.adfa.oz.au (JENKINS ROBERT) writes:

>	I am considering buying a printer for my Linux system, and I was
>wondering what people would recommend. I intend to do a fair amount of
>TeX or LaTeX stuff, and probably won't have much call for printing
>graphics. Black and white is fine.
>	I confess to being somewhat confused over the issue of device-
>independant and postscript formats: I am hoping that I do not really
>need a postscript-compatible printer (which seem just a bit expensive)
>so what drivers should I use?

I have an HP Deskjet 600 inkjet printer. I've seen them advertised in the 
paper for under $400; they're pretty good value. For about $80, you can get
an upgrade to colour if you decide you want it later on.

Use apsfilter to give yourself transparent postscript printing (it uses
ghostscript to do the imaging when it detects a postscript file). The apsfilter
installation script is pretty clever and supports HP deskjet printers so you
just have to answer the relevant questions.

For TeX, I use dvi500 which is a DVI to Deskjet 500 converter. This outputs
binary data printer which you can pipe straight to the printer (apsfilter will
pass it straight through). I've a feeling that ghostscript and the existing
DVI drivers don't give you the BEST possible print quality, since they are
effectively writing images to the printer and not using its native fonts. The
quality is still pretty good, though. A problem is that ghostscripts native
adobe-style postscipt fonts (eg. the helvetica, new-century, etc) are all
converted from bitmaps (!) and can look rather ugly if you blow them up. The
fix would be to get some proper postscipt code for these fonts (don't know if
this is available or not). 

Hope this helps,

Stewart