********************* WHICH DRIVER TO USE? ********************************
The lz11-project offers a new drivers for your Lexmark Z11.
----------------------lz11-V2-----------------------------------------------
The driver lz11-V2 is an improvement of the lz11 driver, which was
first released in 2002. Additionally to the features of lz11,
which include variable page sizes and ink saving, the lz11-V2
version comes with a backward compatibility mode for the filters
"cZ11" and "cZ11somsom". While the cZ11 filter is emulated in an
improved way, which helps to save ink and takes away the grayish look
of color prints, the cZ11somsom emulation only supports the basic
properties (as InkType and DitherPPI). Ink weighting is not included,
but merely needed, because of a new pixel placement algorithm for
black and color ink.
"Highlights" of the lz11-V2 are: further improved printing speed for
black ink and a tool to align the skew of the black ink cartridge.
A smooth-dithering algorithm for black and color prints was added.
The driver comes with an improved set of installation and utility
scripts that support automatic installation-option-checking,
testpage-printing, black-ink-adjustment, automatic installation of
foomatic-xml-files as well as automatic installation of the included
PPD files for CUPS and PPR. For backward compatibility reason the
GhostScript device emulation (as "hpdj", "epsonc", ...) is still
included, but should never be offered on "modern" Linux installations.
The original driver-code "cZ11" was written by Christian Kornblum
in 2001 (this code still is the backbone of this filter).
It got enhancements and bug fixes from Som-Som, Erik Bernhardson,
Mihael Hategan, Ullrich Sigwanz and Till Kamppeter
WARNING:This driver is known not to work with the
Z31 and Z51. In fact, it is known to hose those printers' flash in
some circumstances!
COLOR PRINTING
InkSaving="Smoothly Dithered" (0) and InkSaving="Some More" (3)
are the best choices for color print outs. The driver will always choose
the highest possible DITHERPPI-setting of gs, to reduce the "graininess"
of the picture. Though you will experience the restrictions of the
ghostscript-bitcmyk device.
InkSaving="Smoothly Dithered" (0) is a LEGACY mode that emulates the
behavior of the old cZ11 but with optimized pixel placement algorithm.
If you want to print equally shaded color areas (for paintings or comics),
InkSaving="Some More" (3) might be the better choice.
with InkSaving="Even More" (4) and "A Lot" (5) you can print drafts,
not more (I guess)
InkSaving="Off" (1) and InkSaving="Some" (2) are high density print modes
that produce dark pictures
BLACK AND WHITE PRINTING
For black ink, lz11-V2 uses the bit-device of gs. This will produce
printouts that will look much less "rough", compared with the older
lz11 (up to 0.3). Grey surfaces show equally spaced pixel placement and
will therefore look much more "professional".
InkSaving="Off" (1) and InkSaving="Some" (2) are the best choices for
black ink.
For smooth rendering a legacy mode is available with
InkSaving="Smoothly Dithered" (0)
The printing speed of the black ink cartridge has been increased
significantly compared to older versions
----------------------the scripts-------------------------------------------
There are 4 scripts included that you can use right away to deal with
300dpi and 600dpi bitcmyk (color) -bitmaps or bit (black & white) -bitmaps.
This scripts might be useful, when using older printer filters
like "/usr/lib/apsfilter/bin/apsfilter"
there are
cZ11-bit-300dpi
cZ11-bit-600dpi
cZ11-bitcmyk-300dpi
cZ11-bitcmyk-600dpi
They are all set up for A4 sheets, but when you know the proper pixel
dimensions you can also edit and adjust them for other paper sizes
(lz11.foomatic lists all paper dimensions, it might be worth to look)
----------------------replacing the old driver cZ11-------------------------
When you print with CUPS or other foomatic backends you can just skip this
part ;-)
The installation will create an executable "cZ11" that will substitude
older versions of the cZ11 printer filter (Christian Kornblums's
famous version), which is still used e.g. with SuSE.
You will recognize that the printouts are lighter (33% of ink)
and less greyish compared to the older cZ11 version.
The "som-som" driver is also emulated, but the ink toning options
will have no effect.
For the update of older filters just invoke
make install (as root)
----------------------stop "false" print outs ------------------------------
You may want to stop a printout in case of emergency at any time.
Call "lz11.stop" for this purpose.
When you have invoked lz11.stop you will be asked for the root password,
because only dedicated users will have permission to remove the running
printer filter from the process list.
If you find this anoying, insert the following lines (or a modification of
these) into your sudoers file by invoking "visudo".
This will allow everybody to stop the Z11 printing at any time.
See "man sudoers" for details and restrictions.
# insert for /etc/sudoers
Host_Alias CZ11HOSTS = ALL
User_Alias CZ11USERS = ALL
CZ11USERS CZ11HOSTS = NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/lz11.kill
# end of insert for /etc/sudoers
NOTE: NEVER EDIT /etc/sudoers DIRECTLY, ALWAYS USE visudo !!!
----------------------adjusting the skew of a black ink cartridge-----------
Since the performance of the black ink cartridge was increased by using all
available color jets, the black ink cartridge is much more sensitive to
jitters in the vertical skew.
The driver was completed by an adjustment add-on. You can print a test sheet
that will show you vertical lines with numbers beneath.
The number that correlates with the most "perfect" vertical line is the
adjustment value to use for the skew adjustment.
When you use Foomatic (usually with CUPS) the printout and the input
of the appropriate values as well can easily be done by entering the
according value into the "Skew Adjustment" field of the according
foomatic frontend (CUPS via http://localhost:631, xpp, kprinter)
example:
call
me@mycomputer:~> $ lz11.adjust
to print the calibration page
afterwards - for xpp as graphical frontend in this example - call
me@mycomputer:~> $ xpp
-> Choose the Printer Queue
-> Options
-> TabSheet "Adjustment"
-> Select the best "Skew Adjustment" value
-> Save Settings
-> Cancel
-> Close
by
me@mycomputer:~> $ lz11.testpage
you can print a fancy testpage to judge the effect of the
Skew Adjustment
the corresponding FoomaticRipOption is "SkewAdjustment" just in
case you don't want to use a graphical frontend for
administration and/or printing.
----------------------Troubleshoot------------------------------------------
Setting up a new PPD file might be not as easy as it seems.
Therefore it might be a good idea to delete and create the affected
printer queues from the scratch, when printing fails or
the Skew Adjustment option does not work
----------------------Saving Paper in the Test Phase------------------------
It might be helpful to know that it is possible to test an installation,
without needing tons of paper, when you are not sure if your setup works.
When you invoke the compilation of the driver with some special parameters
the data will be written to some bmp-files in /tmp
namely:
/tmp/lz11_dbg0.bmp
/tmp/lz11_dbg1.bmp
...
/tmp/lz11_dbg9.bmp
To achieve this, call (as root) after a normal installation with
lz11.install
> export LZ11_DEBUG=1 ; make clean install
You can now print to your Z11, but the result will go to /tmp
A good tool to inspect these bitmaps is eog (Eye-of-Gnome).
When you want to revert to real paper prints, call
> export LZ11_DEBUG=0 ; make clean install
---------------------- How to set up a Z11 on the command line ?-------------
If you want to use the command line tool "lpadmin" to set up your Z11 printer,
the following invocation might be a helpful example
# lpadmin -p <name-of-my-printer-queue> \
> -P /usr/share/cups/model/lz11-ppd/Lexmark-Z11-lz11-V2.ppd \
> -v parallel:/dev/lp0 \
> -E
----------------------CREDITS-----------------------------------------------
I would like to thank our fellow user Michael in Berlin who did extensive
tests on his Mandrake installation. Everthing you perceive as good, might
be based on his initiative.
For everything that is bad, just blame me.
----------------------LICENSE-----------------------------------------------
The LICENSE certainly is GPL
And now have a lot of fun
Yours
lz11-Team
