HPLIP

Can't print monochrome to HP Officejet Pro X576dw

Asked by Gerlando Lo Savio

We have hired an HP Officejet Pro X576dw connected to our network, and we want to use it with our Ubuntu 14.10 PCs in our LAN.
We can easily add it from Ubuntu System Settngs, and it prints fine.

Often we need to print grayscale colour documents, but in Ubuntu print window there's no option to print grayscale - only colour.

We need it because printer has counters for color and monochrome pages, and we pay a different rate for colour and grayscale pages.

Is there a way to solve our problem?

Can we create some kind of fake printer, that just filters our print jobs, converting them to grayscale and then send them to the "real" printer?

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Gerlando Lo Savio
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Revision history for this message
Srikanth (srikanth-lokare) said : 		#1

Hi,

If you are printing from Evince
 1. Go to File -> Print
 2. Navigate to Color tab.
 3. Select "On' for Print Color as Gray.
 4. Proceed to print.

If you are Printing from LibreOffice.
 1. Go to File -> Print
 2. Under General Tab, Select 'Print Text in black' check box.
 3. Proceed to Print

If you are using any other application, let us know.

Thanks and Regards,
Srikanth Lokare

Revision history for this message
Gerlando Lo Savio (gerlos) said : 		#2

Hello,
Unfortunately, I need to print from several other applications, and even when I print from Evince I don't have "Print Color as Gray" as an option on "Color" tab.
I got only these options:
- Dry Time
- Saturation
- Black Ink Spread
- RGB Color (that seems to be about color accuracy)

When print from LibreOffice, the "Print Text in black" option affects only text colour, and not images and graphs in documents.

Revision history for this message
Gerlando Lo Savio (gerlos) said : 		#3

Tinkering a little I found a solution anyways.

Looking at LibreOffice printer Properties window that you get clicking on "Properties" from the "General" tab of the "Print" window, I saw an option "Print Color as Gray" that does what I need when I set it to "Black Ink Only" (i.e. it lets me print text AND images in monochrome).

So I looked at my printer options typing at the terminal:
loptions -l -d myprinter
And found the "HPPJLColorAsGray" option, that can be set to "False", "HighQuality" and "BlackInkOnly".

So I went to System Settings -> Printers, duplicated my previous printer and renamed the duplicate with something like "myprinter-mono".
Then in the Printer Properties I went to "Job Options", scrolled down, typed HPPJLColorAsGray in the text box under "To add a new option..." and clicked "Add".
Lastly I typed BlackInkOnly in the new text box that appeared next to HPPJLColorAsGray and clicked OK.

This way, when I print I can choose between two printers, one to print in colour and the other to print in grays.
Easy for me and for my users.

Revision history for this message
Gerlando Lo Savio (gerlos) said : 		#4

One last question: should I open a bug because of this missing option in regular print windows?

Revision history for this message
shinyblue (shinyblue) said : 		#5

I also have this problem.

My CUPS PPD includes the section for this option:

*OpenUI *HPPJLColorAsGray/Print Color as Gray: Boolean
*OrderDependency: 20 JCLSetup *HPPJLColorAsGray
*DefaultHPPJLColorAsGray: BlackInkOnly
*HPPJLColorAsGray False/Off: " "
*HPPJLColorAsGray HighQuality/High Quality: " "
*HPPJLColorAsGray BlackInkOnly/Black Ink Only: " "
*CloseUI: *HPPJLColorAsGray

However this is being ignored by the printer; everything comes out in colour! The Windows (PCL) driver works when colour is disabled.

Revision history for this message
shinyblue (shinyblue) said : 		#6

Linked to : https://answers.launchpad.net/hplip/+question/249118

Revision history for this message
Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14) said : 		#7

Hi,

Looks like you have old HPLIP PPD. There was a bug in the PPD in old HPLIP release. Latest HPLIP has been changed from

"Print Color as Gray: Boolean"

to

"Print Color as Gray: PickOne"

So to fix this issue please install latest HPLIP from http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/install/install/index.html

=> Reconfigure print queue using below commands.

       => hp-setup -r (remove all print queues)
       => hp-setup

=>Try printing now and see if issue gets resolved.

Revision history for this message
shinyblue (shinyblue) said : 		#8

Thanks, Sanjay.

Do you think getting the newer PPD file will be enough? I'd rather avoid installing an out of distro hplip if I can just use a newer ppd file (because printer installation across my network of machines is automated by script).

Rich

Revision history for this message
Sanjay Kumar (sanjay-kumar14) said : 		#9

Hi,

Getting newer PPD will not be enough as it has other dependencies like hpps filter and other python files. So it is better to install latest HPLIP version once.

Thanks,
Sanjay

Revision history for this message
shinyblue (shinyblue) said : 		#10

Installed hplip 3.15.9 py2.5 (on Debian 7.7)

Set black only. Print test page. Still prints colour.

Ideas?

Rich

On 30 September 2015 09:57:29 BST, Sanjay Kumar <email address hidden> wrote:
>Question #265769 on HPLIP changed:
>https://answers.launchpad.net/hplip/+question/265769
>
>Sanjay Kumar posted a new comment:
>Hi,
>
>Getting newer PPD will not be enough as it has other dependencies like
>hpps filter and other python files. So it is better to install latest
>HPLIP version once.
>
>Thanks,
>Sanjay
>
>--
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