Better Printing with Gutenprint 5.2.1

Oct 28, 2008

The Gutenprint project develops filters for the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) to operate with a range of commercial printers. Gutenprint 5.2.1 is now available with numerous changes and improvements.

As can be seen in the release notes, Gutenprint 5.2.1 supports hundreds of new printers, including a huge list of b&w laser printers and tons of Epson inkjet printers (many in the Stylus series), alongside improved support of the PIXMA models from Canon. (Meanwhile, Canon itself is also supplying drivers for Linux.)

The current release requires GIMP 2.0 (2.2 recommended) for the Print plugin, and dropped support for Mac OS X 10.2 in favor of 10.3. Users who created profiles in Gutenprint 5.1 should recreate them in 5.2. Under the covers, the generic PostScript driver was brought closer to functionality of the native printer drivers, with all PPD file options now supported and the CMYK input handled correctly. Moreover, the PostScript driver now recognizes Gutenprint PPD files.

Not least of all Gutenprint 5.2 offers additional printer driver options. Quality presets were added to PCL laser printer drivers along with extended page formats. Individual resets can be made without affecting global settings. Gutenprint developers also improved PPD data localization.

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