Bug 205179

Using most recent CURRENT (11.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 11.0-CURRENT #0 r292014: Wed Dec  9 11:17:26 CET 2015 amd64) and most recent ports tree (Revision: 403440) and an updated ports collection via traditional port building and updating on a daily/weekly basis, CUPS printing system is doing wrong with HP OfficeJet Pro X451dw.

CUPS is installed as follows:

cups-2.0.3_1
cups-base-2.0.3_3
cups-client-2.0.3_2
cups-filters-1.2.0
cups-image-2.0.3_2
cups-pstoraster-8.15.4_8
gutenprint-cups-5.2.10_1
hplip-3.14.10_1

Printing DIN A4 paper.

The error:

The HP OfficeJet X451dw is equipted with a duplexer. Using CUPS, one has to enable the duplexer in the standard configuration. Usually, duplexing allows two types of binding: left binding - this is as we now it when we read a book, the pages "get bound" at the left hand edge of the page 9flipping the page to the left reveals the back of the page and it is still readable without turning it 180 degree). Or we can choose a "top binding" - which means, the back of a double-sided page is still readable without turning you 180 degree, if you flip the page upward - like a flipchart or a wall-calender.

I figured out, using FreeBSD's (outdated) CUPS 2.0.3 system (CUPS has > 2.1 now), that duplex printing in conjunction with the driver PPD provided by HP via port print/hplip-3.14.10_1, namely  /usr/local/share/ppd/HP/hp-officejet_pro_451_series-ps.ppd.gz, does wrong!

If someone configures a print queue the classical way for duplex printing, setting duplexing to enabled and set binding to left - as one would expect to do, the binding on small PDFs is top (like the flipchart/wall-calender). Switching to "binding top" is then as expected. But this does not hold for larger PDFs like a book with ~300 pages (I tested only on that sizes). They get always print like flipcharts when doing duplex printing!

I do not have the time to investigate this deeper, so I did not check on PS files - it doesn't matter, the printing is wrong anyway and PDF is very common. I tried the very same printer with the very same configuration, but this time with Linux Ubuntu 15.10, which comes with CUPS 2.1 (didn't check for the minor numer) and the configured hplip (version unknown). The problem I face with FreeBSD's port selection is not present there.

The print system is rendered useless in this case.