Printing in Unix

[Nikhil Sun]

I have deployed my java application on a Solaris system.A network printer is connected to this Solaris machine.And from within the java application I am firing a print using Java's Print API.
I am printing a GIF document.But the printer outputs junk characters onto the pages.When the same thing is done on an application deployed on a Windows system and print is fired to a printer attached to this Windows system it prints properly.
Can someone advise me on what would be the problem and how to rectify it?

[Joe Ess]

Is the Solaris system running Xwindows?
I had to install Xvfb to get headless mode to work on my Solaris servers for JDK 1.4.
Here is a more recent article on headless mode under Java 6.

[Nikhil Sun]

Well I am not aware of what XWindows is and what is it's purpose in a Solaris System.Can you please tell me?Also can someone please let me know what would be any other probable reason because of which I am facing the problem?

[Joe Ess]

Wiki entry for Xwindows
Do you have a graphical display on this machine or do you just have a command line?

[Nikhil Sun]

I am not sure if whether the system has a Graphical Display matters.All I am doing is deploying a Java application as a jar in the Solaris Server.Now when the application is run it fires a print to a Nwtwork Printer through the Java Print API.All this is done without using any GUI or Swing application which would require manual selections.
Here everything is done without manual intervention at all.The application gets the list of printservices configured for the Server and fires the print to the designated printer.The same application deployed on Windows works fine and my GIF document gets printed properly on the printer.But with the application deployed on Solaris the printer spews out junk characters when GIF document is printed.I just need to know how to circumvent this problem.

[Joe Ess]

Originally posted by Nikhil Sun:
I am not sure if whether the system has a Graphical Display matters.

Printing requires a graphical environment to render graphics on a virtual "page" to send to the printer. Windows always has a graphical environment (hence the name). On a Unix variant like Solaris, the graphical environment is an optional component.
As for how to circumvent this problem, see the links I posted in my original reply (it may be as easy as setting the system property "-Djava.awt.headless= true" on your server).
[ June 20, 2008: Message edited by: Joe Ess ]

[Nikhil Sun]

I see that Xvfb is there on the Solaris system.I also set the System property java.awt.headless as true inside my application.
Inspite of this when I try and print I am getting the following Exception when I try to print a txt file:

java.awt.print.PrinterException: Printer is not accepting job.
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at sun.print.RasterPrinterJob.print(RasterPrinterJob.java:1231)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at sun.print.RasterPrinterJob.print(RasterPrinterJob.java:1197)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.runtime.printer.TextPrinter.doPrint(TextPrinter.java:216)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.runtime.printer.TextPrinter.print(TextPrinter.java:177)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.runtime.dispatcher.PrintDispatcher.printDocs(PrintDispatcher.java:141)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.runtime.dispatcher.PrintDispatcher.process(PrintDispatcher.java:85)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.runtime.dispatcher.PrintDispatcher.prepareToPrint(PrintDispatcher.java:48)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.runtime.dispatcher.PrintDispatcher.firePrint(PrintDispatcher.java:27)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.PrintEngine.runJob(PrintEngine.java:44)
2008-07-02 13:15:57.108 [info] at nia.ps.engine.PrintEngine.spooler_process(PrintEngine.java:65)

Any clues friends??

[Nikhil Sun]

can someone help me with this issue?

[Joe Ess]

Are you using CUPS? There's a problem with CUPS changing the way they use sockets.

[Nikhil Sun]

I haven't been able to solve the problem yet.I deployed my application again on a Solaris system.Using printmgr I configured a network printer on this system.Till here things are good.then when my Java application(which uses Java Print Service API) runs the call to printer seems to occur but printing(of a GIF file for example) doesn't happen.There is no error though now.
Also when I directly give the unix command
lp -d hplj file.gif it works and the gif document gets printed.
Why doesn't print call from within Java work?
I need to crack this as I am working towards production deployment but I am stuck p for qite some time because of this.

[karthik Suryanarayanan]

Nikhil,
Did you resolve the issue. The same happens here. Printing is done but it prints only Junk characters. Any resolution??

[Campbell Ritchie]

What encoding are you using?

[karthik Suryanarayanan]

Hi Campbell,
I have been using the following code ..

//package com.qnb.ebusiness.common;
//POC for calling the printer for UNB CHG_33753

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.font.*;
import java.awt.geom.*;
import java.awt.print.*;
import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;
import javax.print.*; 

public class PrintPassword implements Printable {

	public PrintPassword(){
	  System.setProperty("java.awt.headless","true");
	  //System.setProperty("java.security.policy","true");
	}

/**
 * Main Method for testing purpose.
 */

public static void main(String args[]) 
{

		HashMap hashprint		= new HashMap();

		hashprint.put("branch","0011");
		hashprint.put("mnemonic","12674947505890");
		hashprint.put("baseno","0034567");
		hashprint.put("name","VEERAMANI BALASUBRAMANIAN");
		hashprint.put("userid","balatest");
		hashprint.put("secretcode","test0001");
		hashprint.put("printername","pinmailer");
		System.out.println("Input HashMap :"+hashprint);

		PrintPassword obj = new PrintPassword();

		// System.out.println("Passing HashMap : ["+hashprint+"]");

		obj.CallPrinter(hashprint);
	    
		// System.out.println("Template Printed Successfully!!!");

}

	// Global HashMap declared as static for carrying global data.
	public static HashMap globalHash;

	public void CallPrinter(HashMap hashObject) 
	{
		String printername = new String();

		try
		{
			//System.out.println("HashMap inside CallPrinter() : ["+hashObject+"]");

			if(hashObject != null)
			{
				// Assigning Input HashMap to Global HashMap
				globalHash	= hashObject;

				printername	= String.valueOf(globalHash.get("printername"));				
			}
			else
			{
				System.out.println("Problem in Printing.....");
			}

			/* Build a book containing pairs of page painters (Printables)
			 * and PageFormats. This example has a single page containing
			 * text.
			 */
			Book book = new Book();

		  //--- Add the document page using a landscape page format
			PageFormat documentPageFormat	= new PageFormat();
			documentPageFormat.setOrientation(PageFormat.PORTRAIT);
			book.append(new PrintPassword(), documentPageFormat);

			/* Get the representation of the current printer and 
			 * the current print job.
			 */

			PrinterJob printerJob = null;

			PrintService[] services = PrinterJob.lookupPrintServices();

			for (int i = 0; i < services.length; i++)
			{ 
				System.out.println("Available printer name:" + services[i].getName());
				if (services[i].getName().contains(printername))
				{ 
					System.out.println("Print goes to Printer : " + services[i].getName());
					printerJob = PrinterJob.getPrinterJob();
					printerJob.setPrintService(services[i]);
					break;
				} 
			}

			/* Set the object to be printed (the Book) into the PrinterJob.
			 * Doing this before bringing up the print dialog allows the
			 * print dialog to correctly display the page range to be printed
			 * and to dissallow any print settings not appropriate for the
			 * pages to be printed.
			 */

			printerJob.setPageable(book); 
			printerJob.print();

			/* Show the print dialog to the user. This is an optional step
			 * and need not be done if the application wants to perform
			 * 'quiet' printing. If the user cancels the print dialog then false
			 * is returned. If true is returned we go ahead and print.
			 */
			/*
			boolean doPrint = printerJob.printDialog();
				
			if (doPrint) 
			{ 
				try 
				{
					printerJob.print();
				} 
				catch(PrinterException exception) 
				{
					System.err.println("Printing error: " + exception);
				}
			}
			*/
			System.err.println("Action Print Successfully !!!!");
		}
		catch(Exception exception)
		{
			System.out.println("Exception occured in CallPrinter() : "+exception); 
		}
		//System.exit(0);
	}				   

	 /**
       * Method: print <p>
       *
       * @param g a value of type Graphics
       * @param pageFormat a value of type PageFormat
       * @param page a value of type int
       * @return a value of type int
       */
    
	  public int print(Graphics g, PageFormat pageFormat, int page) {

         //--- Create the Graphics2D object
         Graphics2D g2d			= (Graphics2D) g;
		 
		 int POINTS_PER_INCH	= 6;
         //--- Translate the origin to 0,0 for the top left corner
         g2d.translate (pageFormat.getImageableX (), pageFormat.getImageableY ());

         //--- Set the default drawing color to black
         g2d.setPaint (Color.black);
      
         //Font titleFont			= new Font ("helvetica", Font.BOLD, 8);
		 Font titleFont			= new Font ("arial", Font.PLAIN, 8);
         g2d.setFont (titleFont);

         //--- Compute the horizontal center of the page
         FontMetrics fontMetrics= g2d.getFontMetrics ();
         double titleX			= 40;
         double titleY			= 8 * POINTS_PER_INCH;
		 
		 //System.out.println("HashMap inside print() : ["+globalHash+"]");

		 String nationalid		= new String("NATIONAL ID : ");
		 String branch			= new String("REGISTERED BRANCH : ");
		 String userid			= new String("USERID : ");
		 String password		= new String();
		 String name			= new String("NAME : ");
		 String baseno			= new String("CUSTOMER NUMBER : ");

		 nationalid				= nationalid + String.valueOf(globalHash.get("mnemonic"));
		 branch					= branch + String.valueOf(globalHash.get("branch"));
		 userid					= userid + String.valueOf(globalHash.get("userid"));
		 password				= password + String.valueOf(globalHash.get("secretcode"));
		 name					= name + String.valueOf(globalHash.get("name"));
		 baseno					= baseno + String.valueOf(globalHash.get("baseno"));
			 
         g2d.drawString (branch, (int) titleX, (int) titleY);
		 
		 titleY+= 2 * POINTS_PER_INCH;

         g2d.drawString (nationalid, (int) titleX, (int) titleY);

		 titleY+= 2 * POINTS_PER_INCH;

         g2d.drawString (baseno, (int) titleX, (int) titleY);

		 titleY+= 2 * POINTS_PER_INCH;

         g2d.drawString (name, (int) titleX, (int) titleY);

		 titleY+= 2 * POINTS_PER_INCH;		 

         g2d.drawString (userid, (int) titleX, (int) titleY);

		 titleY+= 2 * POINTS_PER_INCH;		 

		 g2d.drawString (password, 400, (int) titleY);

         return Printable.PAGE_EXISTS;
      }
}

I'm not specifically using any encoding. Just have run this class in Unix server(HP-UX). Printer is EPSON LQ-690 ESC/P2 and is connected to my Unix server. I have already raised this in http://www.coderanch.com/t/556410/java/java/Printing-data-Java-Linux-Unix