PPD - Pimp your Printer Driver

I recently got myself a new printer, the HP Officejet Pro X476dw. A very nice and powerful machine, it can not only print double sided but also scan, copy and send faxes.

And of course it has very good Linux support, thanks to the HP Linux Printing and Imaging Open Source project. On my Ubuntu 14.10 desktop everything is already included to use the printer.

However, the first printouts where very disappointing. They looked coarse and ugly, much worse than prints from my old HP LaserJet 6 printer. After overcoming the initial shock I realized that only prints from my Ubuntu desktop where bad while prints over Google Cloud Print where crisp and good looking.

So obviously something has to be wrong with the printer drive on Ubuntu!

After some debugging I was able to trace this down to the fact that by default CUPS converts the print job to 300 dpi PostScript before giving it to the hp driver, as it shows in the CUPS logs:

D [Job 261] Printer make and model: HP HP Officejet Pro X476dw MFP
D [Job 261] Running command line for pstops: pstops 261 schlomo hebrew-test.pdf 1 'finishings=3 media=iso_a4_210x297mm output-bin=face-down print-color-mode=color print-quality=4 sides=one-sided job-uuid=urn:uuid:c1da9224-d10b-3c2f-6a99-487121b8864c job-originating-host-name=localhost time-at-creation=1414128121 time-at-processing=1414128121 Duplex=None PageSize=A4'
D [Job 261] No resolution information found in the PPD file.
D [Job 261] Using image rendering resolution 300 dpi
D [Job 261] Running command line for gs: gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sDEVICE=ps2write -sOUTPUTFILE=%stdout -dLanguageLevel=3 -r300 -dCompressFonts=false -dNoT3CCITT -dNOINTERPOLATE -c 'save pop' -f /var/spool/cups/tmp/066575456f596

I was able to fix the problem by adding this resolution setting to the PostScript Printer Definitions (PPD):

*DefaultResolution: 600x600dpi

As a result the print job is converted at 600 dpi instead of 300 dpi which leads to the expected crisp result:

D [Job 262] Printer make and model: HP HP Officejet Pro X476dw MFP
D [Job 262] Running command line for pstops: pstops 262 schlomo hebrew-test.pdf 1 'Duplex=None finishings=3 media=iso_a4_210x297mm output-bin=face-down print-color-mode=color print-quality=4 sides=two-sided-long-edge job-uuid=urn:uuid:83e69459-c350-37e5-417d-9ca00f8c6bd9 job-originating-host-name=localhost time-at-creation=1414128153 time-at-processing=1414128153 PageSize=A4'
D [Job 262] Using image rendering resolution 600 dpi
D [Job 262] Running command line for gs: gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sDEVICE=ps2write -sOUTPUTFILE=%stdout -dLanguageLevel=3 -r600 -dCompressFonts=false -dNoT3CCITT -dNOINTERPOLATE -c 'save pop' -f /var/spool/cups/tmp/0666d544aec68

Isn't it really nice that one only needs a text editor to fix printer driver problems on Linux (and Mac)?

On github.com/schlomo/HP_Officejet_Pro_X476dw I maintain an improved version of the PPD file with the following features:

• Set printing resolution to 600dpi
• Use printer for multiple copies, not CUPS
• Default to duplex printing

The corresponding Launchpad bug is still open und unresolved. Apparently it is not simply to submit improvements upstream.