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<H2><A NAME="s1">1. Networking HP DeskJet PPA printers with SAMBA </A></H2>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1 Overview of PPA printers.</A>
</H2>
<P>The HP DeskJet 710/712C, 720/722C, 820Cse/820Cxi and 1000Cse/1000Cxi
printers are
"Winprinters" which are designed only for use with
MS Windows operating systems. HP supplies Windows-only software
that processes the input data into the proprietary and unpublished
PPA ("Printer Performance Architecture") protocol.
<P>HP states that these printers are <B>not supported as networked
printers</B>, but they in fact function correctly as shared (SMB)
printers under MS Windows.
<P>In this document, the <B>Host</B> is the computer to which
the PPA printer is physically connected, and the <B>Clients</B> are
other computers on the network that wish to print documents
on the PPA printer.
<P>In the Windows printing system, separate copies of the HP PPA printer drivers
are installed on each Client, and are run on the Client to produce PPA output
that is sent over the network to be spooled
on the Host to which the printer is attached.
<P>HP's drivers are only supplied for Windows systems. The
independently-produced
<A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/projects/pnm2ppa">pnm2ppa</A>
driver runs on Linux, some other Unix systems, and BeOS.
<P>This document describes various tested strategies for
using <CODE>pnm2ppa</CODE> and the
<A HREF="http://www.samba.org">samba</A>
suite of SMB tools to allow the PPA printer to be attached to
a non-Windows host on a (TCP-based) SMB network, or to allow
non-Windows Clients to receive printing services from a Host
on the network.
<P>
<H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2 Choice of protocol for sending over the network.</A>
</H2>
<P>There are <B>two</B> possible ways to send printer data from a Client to
the printer Host over the network.
<UL>
<LI> as <B>PPA data</B>, created by a driver on the Client.
This is what
happens when using conventional printer sharing on Windows.</LI>
<LI> as <B>PostScript data</B>, created on the Client, which
is then translated into PPA instructions by
drivers running on the printer Host.</LI>
</UL>
Since PPA data is rather large, the first method involves sending
larger amounts of data over the network, which may be why HP do
not officially support PPA DeskJets as networked printers. It also
requires that PPA drivers are installed on the Client.
<P>The Host to which the printer is attached can thus provide <B>two</B>
classes
of printing services:
<UL>
<LI><B>PPA printing services:</B> the Host accepts PPA-format
printing jobs created on the Clients either with HP's native PPA drivers
(Windows Clients) or <CODE>pnm2ppa</CODE> (Unix/Linux/BeOS Clients);</LI>
<LI><B>PostScript printing services:</B> the Host accepts PostScript-format
printing jobs created on any postscript-capable Client, and converts
them to PPA format using either HP's native PPA drivers
(Windows Host) or <CODE>pnm2ppa</CODE> (Unix/Linux/BeOS Host);</LI>
</UL>
It is useful to set up the Host to offer <B>both types</B> of service,
sharing a common spooling system.
<P>
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