Gimp-Print 4.2.4, released November 25, 2002, is a stable release in the Gimp-Print 4.2 series.

Gimp-Print is a suite of printer drivers that may be used with most common UNIX print spooling systems, including CUPS, lpr, LPRng, or others. These drivers provide high quality printing for UNIX (including Macintosh OS X 10.2 and newer) and Linux systems in many cases equal to or better than proprietary vendor-supplied drivers, and can be used for many of the most demanding printing tasks.

This software includes the Print plug-in for the Gimp, and GhostScript and CUPS drivers, including Foomatic data.

The Print plug-in for the requires the Gimp 1.2.

The CUPS driver requires CUPS 1.1.9 or higher. 1.1.14 or above is highly recommended, as certain translation-related bugs are fixed and it is possible to print true CMYK.

The Ghostscript driver requires GNU Ghostscript 5.10, 5.50, 6.51, or any later GNU Ghostscript release based on 6.51 (e. g. 6.52). It may also be used with GNU Ghostscript 7.05, or with ESP Ghostscript 7.05.

The IJS GhostScript plugin driver requires GNU Ghostscript 6.53 or later, ESP Ghostscript 7.05 or later, or APFL GhostScript 7.04 or later.

Users of Macintosh OS X 10.2 and above can use this package, as the printing system is based on CUPS, which is supported by Gimp-print. Note that Macintosh OS X 10.0 and 10.1 (including 10.1.5) cannot use this package. We recommend that Macintosh OS X users download the precompiled installer package from
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3 rather than attempt to build this package from source, as using the installer is much simpler. We further recommend that Macintosh OS X users install ESP GhostScript, to permit printing from Carbon applications (such as most Adobe applications) that generate PostScript rather than PDF output. Directions for that are also available at http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3.

Please read the README file for full instructions on installing this package.

Gimp-Print 4.2.4 contains the following major changes over Gimp-Print 4.2.3:

* Major Bugs Fixed:

1) (bugs 603702 and 619537) All PCL laser printers (including HP LaserJet and many other printer lines) printed too light (black came out as medium gray).

2) (bugs 631993 and 633910) Various problems with the PPD files used by the native CUPS driver worked incorrectly with many applications, leading to failures to print, failures to recognize certain page sizes, and custom page sizes not working correctly have been fixed. To fix these problems, you must reinstall all of your printer queues using Gimp-Print PPD files. To do this, you must delete and re-create the printer queue (merely modifying or configuring the queue will not solve the problem).

Please see the release notes for 4.2.3 (below) for instructions on using custom page sizes.

3) (bug 628698) Lexmark printers produced severely distorted colors in some cases.

4) (bug 631498) Canon large-format printers did not support A3 paper size; these printers are now capable of printing on that size paper.

5) (no bug number) PCL laser printers now have correct margins on A4-size paper.

6) (bug 630365) The Epson Stylus Photo 950 now prints correctly in 1440x1440 and 2880x720 DPI modes. This is not significant new functionality; these modes are actually printed at 2880x1440, which did not have htis problem.

7) (no bug number, but related to 628698) 6-color HP printers should now print correctly using all 6 colors.

8) (no bug number) The dimensions for 22x30 watercolor paper were incorrect.

* New Functionality:

1) The following HP DesignJet large-format plotters are now supported: DesignJet 230, 250, 430, 450, 455, 488, 700, 2500, and 3500. Other DesignJet printers may work with one of these drivers.

2) The following Epson multi-function devices are now supported as printers: Stylus 3200CX and 5200CX. This project does not support scanners, so we cannot offer any advice on the scanner component of these units.

3) The Epson MJ-930C is now supported.

4) Various manual pages have been added or updated. See gimpprint(3), ijsgimpprint(1), escputil(1), and cups-calibrate(8) for more information.

5) Transverse versions of the US CAD standard paper sizes (ArchA, ArchB, ArchC, ArchD, and ArchE) have been added. This permits printing e. g. ArchD size (24x36) plots on ArchE (36 inch wide) paper.

* Exceptions and Workarounds:

1) The new HP DesignJets have not been fully tuned. In particular, there are reports that they print too light. This can be corrected with the Density adjustment (try 1.5~1.7 or thereabouts).

2) The version of libtool used to build this package, 1.4.2, does not create shared libraries correctly on some platforms (in particular, MIPS and MIPSEL). The workaround is to either build static libraries only (configure --disable-shared), or to regenerate the libtool with libtool 1.4.3. We expect this to be fixed in a future release.

3) The Epson Stylus 2200 has not been tuned in 7-color mode, and reports are that quality is subpar in this mode. We recommend using 6-color mode until this is tuned, which we hope to be in the near future.

4) There are longstanding reports of problems printing with certain USB-parallel and USB-serial adapters on Macintosh OS X. In particular, many users have reported problems with the Keyspan adapter; we recommend that users having problems try different brands of adapters, and avoid using USB hubs. Please check our web site (http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net) for updates.

5) The list of compatible and potentially compatible Hewlett-Packard printers has been updated with the latest available information. If a particular printer does not work with the recommended driver, we recommend that you try other similar drivers, check the Feature Requests at
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=101537&group_id=1537&func=browse, and if the printer is not listed please file a feature request (via the Submit New button).

The following bugs have been fixed in Gimp-Print 4.2.4:

603702 QUALITY-HP LaserJet 5L print is too light 619537 QUALITY - Poor quality w/ Lexmark OprtaE+ and pcl-4 628698 Lexmark color reversal
630365 Epson Stylus Photo 950: Enlarged image with some 1440/2800 631498 Canon driver does not support A3 page size for large format 631936 HP DesignJet Margin Problems
631993 Macintosh OS X: Custom page size problems w/some apps 633910 Epson 1520 ppd bug gimp-print 4.2.3

The following bugs are currently open:

409612 Minor positioning prob on 4x6 glossy 538097 QUALITY-Poor quality printing on Canon s400 549677 Incorrect scaling on Canon BJC-1000 557868 QUALITY-Washed out color under Gimp on HP560c 581168 Canon BJC 250 just spits out pages 601767 Mac OS X: Canon BJC 2100 does not print multiple pages 602933 QUALITY-Poor quality on Canon S800 613054 Mac OS X: Printing from InDesign 2.0 on OS 10.2.1 614882 QUALITY - Problems with CANON BJC-55 - Gimp-Print 619299 QUALITY - brightness adjustment problem 621668 Epson Stylus full bleed prints have slight margin 625780 Epson Stylus Pro 5000 does not print 627266 Epson Stylus Pro Autoselect paper feed broken 627978 QUALITY: Canon BJC-6500 has magenta cast. 631937 HP DesignJet Sheet Cutter Problem 639356 Build system: The version of libtool is too old 641992 HP DesignJet 455CA printing rotated 90 641981 HP DesignJet 455 too light
641628 QUALITY: Epson Stylus 2200 print quality is low in 7-color