slackbuilds_ponce/office/cups-pdf/README.SBo

Welcome to CUPS-PDF v2

 CONTENTS:

  1. building CUPS-PDF
  2. setting up the PDF queue with CUPS
  3. note for MacOSX
  4. contact


1. building CUPS-PDF
--------------------

   Edit src/cups-pdf.h if you do not like /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf as name 
   for the configuration file.
   To compile CUPS-PDF, invoke gcc in the src/ directory:

   gcc -O9 -s -o cups-pdf cups-pdf.c

   To install the binary, simply copy cups-pdf to the backend directory
   of CUPS (usually /usr/lib/cups/backend).

   Now copy extra/cups-pdf.conf to /etc/cups (or whatever location you
   selected in cups-pdf.h above). Here you can set all properties of 
   CUPS-PDF at runtime without the need for restarting any services.
   (The defaults should work fine on most systems.)

   In case you want to use the color PostScript driver that comes with
   CUPS-PDF go to the extra/ subdirectory and copy CUPS-PDF.ppd to your 
   CUPS model directory (usually /usr/share/cups/model [ /Generic ] ). 


2. setting up the PDF queue with CUPS
-------------------------------------

   Important notes:
   ================
   
   * CUPS-PDF requires root privileges since it has to modify file ownerships. 
     In order to ensure CUPS-PDF is running with the required root privileges
     you have to make 'root' the owner of the cups-pdf backend and set the 
     file permissions of the backend to 0700 (root only).
     NOTE: in older versions of CUPS (<1.2.0) you have to set the "RunAsUser" 
           option in cupsd.conf to "No" in order to grant full privileges.
   * CUPS-PDF needs a fully featured UNIX-filesystem to work. Make sure if any
     of CUPS-PDF's working directories (e.g. output) are located on an NFS 
     mounted volume they are mounted without root_squash! Other filesystems 
     (e.g. NetWare or Windows shares) are _not_ supported!
   * CUPS-PDF is known to fail if the gs (GhostScript) binary on a system is 
     compressed by upx (Ultimate Packer for eXecutables).
   * If you are using SELinux, AppArmour or similar tools,  make sure these do
     not interfere with CUPS-PDF.
     (You can disable SELinux for CUPS by "setsebool -P cupsd_disable_trans 1"
      or have a look at contrib/SELinux-HOWTO to make it work)

   Now you will be able to choose "CUPS-PDF (Virtual PDF Printer)" when 
   setting up a new printer in CUPS (a CUPS-restart may be necessary).
   To set up a queue for other UNIX clients you should select Postscript as
   vendor and the Color Printer as model for your new printer; queues that get
   their input from samba or netatalk (i.e. Windows, OS/2 or MacOS) can be set
   up as raw queues. On the Windows, OS/2 or MacOS system choose a color
   postscript driver for that network printer (the drivers for Minolta Page
   Works or HP DesignJet printers do a good job).
   Hint: If you want to create grayscale PDFs you just have to choose a
   grayscale printer driver, i.e. the postscript.ppd that comes with CUPS on
   the Linux side or a b/w laser printer (e.g. a HP LaserJet) on the Windows
   side. On the Linux side be aware that the postscript.ppd will not
   re-process data that is already supplied in Postscript format, i.e. a color
   Postscript will keep it's colors.

   Once you print to the new device the output directory selected in
   cups-pdf.conf (defaults to /var/spool/cups-pdf) will be created and all
   converted PDF files will be placed in subdirectories named after the owner
   of the print job. In case the owner cannot be identified (i.e. does not
   exist on the server) the output is placed in the directory for anonymous
   operation (if not disabled in cups-pdf.conf - defaults to 
   /var/spool/cups-pdf/ANONYMOUS/).
   Furthermore if logging is enabled the logfile will be placed by default in
   /var/log/cups.

   The file "CUPS-PDF.ppd" is a modified version of the "Postscript.ppd.gz" 
   that comes with CUPS 1.1.15 that is able to handle color output.

   You should have a look at the contrib/ directory in this bundle which
   contains several additions to CUPS-PDF which enhance functionality or 
   supports the setup of CUPS-PDF on different platforms.


3. note for MacOSX
------------------

   Since MacOSX' AFPL GhostScript does not support the way of PDF generation 
   used by CUPS-PDF you will have to use pstopdf instead. For this the
   settings of GhostScript, GSCall and PDFVer in cups-pdf.conf have to be
   changed accordingly. The values are documented in cups-pdf.conf .


4. contact
----------
   
   Dr. Volker Christian Behr
   behr@physik.uni-wuerzburg.de
   http://www.cups-pdf.de