TLDR: Why is the content of my /etc/papersize being ignored? More detail below.
On Friday, 22 December 2017 16:30:06 GMT Mick wrote: > On Thursday, 21 December 2017 23:20:24 GMT you wrote: > > On Thursday, 21 December 2017 23:01:50 GMT Walter Dnes wrote: > > > Is there a default page size setting in your desktop environment that > > > could've changed? > > > > This problem is happening across different PCs, desktops/DEs and different > > applications. The common factor is they are all using CUPS, the same > > brother driver and the default page size of A4. > > > > I'll have another poke tomorrow into the http GUI of the printer and then > > try to print with MSWindows to see what happens. > > MSWindows prints fine, just as Linux used to until recently. I printed a > portrait layout from Firefox on both MSWindows and Linux. A number of you hinted at a paper size mismatch - between printer and PC. You were correct! I foolishly believed what the cups GUI told me, despite some strange behaviour I came across. In particular, modifying the printer using the cups GUI ends up changing *some* of the default paper size fields from "A4" (as shown in the GUI) to "Letter" - as shown in this extract of /etc/cups/ppd/HL-3140CW.ppd: grep Default /etc/cups/ppd/HL-3140CW.ppd *DefaultColorSpace: RGB *%DefaultOutputOrder: Reverse *DefaultPageSize: A4 *DefaultPageRegion: A4 *DefaultImageableArea: Letter *DefaultPaperDimension: Letter [snip ...] Using the cups GUI to 'Set Default Settings' and (re)selecting "A4" seems to work, as far as the ppd file is concerned. However, when I set the printer's Tray 1 from "Any" size to "A4" using its control panel and tried to print a page with: lpr -o fit-to-page -o media=A4 -P 'HL-3140CW' test_print.txt the printer started blinking like a Christmas tree with the message: Size mismatch. Load Letter paper and press Go. So I looked in /etc/papersize and saw it is "a4": $ cat /etc/papersize a4 Then I checked the $PAPERSIZE and $PAPERCONF variables both of which appeared to not being set. Using paperconf to interrogate the default setting I got this beauty: $ paperconf -d letter What the ...?! So, why is /etc/papersize being ignored? PS. I noticed my locale has LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8". Not sure if relevant, but thought of mentioning it just in case. -- Regards, Mick
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