RESOLVED: Re: OT(?) FC2 Very slow printing to HP DeskJet 870Cse

[Kam Leo]

On 2/8/06, Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Mike McCarty wrote:
> > Off topic due to age of FC2?
> >
> > Anyway, have installed an HP DeskJet 870Cse, and it prints
> > unbearably slowly, like 30 minutes per page.
>
> Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!
>
> Success at last! Using GNOME I edited the printer driver options
> to "Prerender Postscript" enabled, and I have now printed a 26
> page document (which includes the "test page" I've been printing)
> start to finish, including queueing time and one paper jam I had
> to clear in just under six minutes. That's just about four pages a
> minute. Just the one "test page" was taking over twenty minutes.
> That's more than 80x speedup.
>
> So, one misconception I had was that this is not a postscript
> capable printer. Apparently it is. But the postcript interpreting
> engine is S-L-O-W.
>
> Pre-rendering was the trick.
>
> Thanks all for your time and help.
>
> Where should we make note of this, if at all?
>
> Mike
>

You might try the CUPS site. I believe they have an FAQ.  Also your
experience is not unique. Many people with old postscript printers
forget that the engine in thoses things run in the 10s of megahertz.
Today's desktop/laptop processor is at minimum an order of magnitude
faster so it makes more sense to perform the rendering at the host.