[Info-vax] printing from VMS

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2021-03-01 12:01:25 +0000, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply said:

> It would be nice to print to that from VMS.  What can I expect to work
> if I set up a queue pointing to the IP address?  Text?  PostScript?
> PDF?  Nothing?
> 
> Any suggestions?


** General

Beyond purchase price, look particularly at the consumables 
prices—inkjet consumables tend to be more expensive or much more 
expensive, as are consumables for the lower-end lasers.

The "departmental" lasers tend to have reasonable consumables price, 
and better reliability.



** Wants, for your case:

You'll want a printer with AirPrint and IPP/IPPS support.
The former is a superset of the latter.
The former for use from iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, and the latter for 
printing from most platforms.
IPP/IPPS does squat for OpenVMS, but most other hosts support one or 
both of IPP/IPPS printing.*
AirPrint and IPP/IPPS remove the need for vendor drivers for most 
printing capabilities.

For Mac, you'll want a printer with at least macOS 10.15 support or 
macOS 11 support, as that means the vendor has been paying attention 
during the last ~decade and has migrated to 64-bit driver support.

If you get a scanner in the mix, you want one with TWAIN support.



** Wants, OpenVMS edition:

For OpenVMS, printers supporting lpr/lpd and/or telnet printing are 
minimally required.
DCPS support can sometimes be faked and which will allow Postscript 
printing, if the printer supports Postscript emulation.
OpenVMS doesn't know from PDF.
Printers minimally supporting lpr/lpd and/or telnet printing mean that 
OpenVMS plain-text printing should work.



** Definitely Don't Wants:

You don't want a printer that uses host-based rendering, as printers 
with host-based rendering will require vendor drivers forever, and some 
vendors keep printers around longer than others but all retire 
printers. These printers will not work with OpenVMS.



** Decisions and trade-offs:

Decide what printing resolution you want, for what you're usually 
printing. For most people, that's routine documents, and printers 
intended for photos.

Decide your preferred page size support, envelope printing support, 
printing speed, automatic document scanner, printer warm-up times, 
printer size, color or monochrome, purchase price or consumables price, 
duty cycle, sorter or stapler, input paper capacity, etc.**

Some vendors have cartridge lifetimes, and some can effectively rent 
the printer as part of a printer-consumables monthly subscription. Not 
my preference.



** Vendor Recommendations:

Brother is one of the last old-school printer vendors around, and they 
have a reasonably long support for their products.
I've been using various MFC-series color laser printer-scanner-copiers 
for some years as have some of my customers, and they've worked well.

Having worked with a number of inkjets over the years, I cannot 
recommend inkjets over a decent-resolution laser.

There are printer companies I won't recommend, whether for their 
pricing, garbage websites, garbage documentation, support policies, 
inferior printers, or otherwise, but that's fodder for another time.


** * **

*Hi Mr Paul
**various of these features are well outside the scope of OpenVMS 
support, including printer PDF rendering support.



-- 
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC