Forum: Printers from Brother

http://www.openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi?make=Brother

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/

• MFC 3100c
• DCP-1000

hl1250 Driver Development Page

hl7x0 Driver Page

Documentation for the used printer language (HBP) is avaible here.

MFC Development Page

The project is not very active, and has not released any files.

No. It has no Page Description Language (PDL). It can only be connected to a Windows machine that has the proprietary GDI driver installed.

It may be possible to emulate a postscript printer and share it across a LAN with SAMBA. SeeNetworking the HP LaserJet 3100

Brother HL-1230/HL-1240

Use the HL-1250 driver.

The parallel port may be misconfigured. Change the parallel port configuration from SPP to EPP in the BIOS.

Sometime this is corrected by printing using thegimp-print driver and not the postscript driver. The output looks slightly different between the two drivers.

Brother HL-1440

The hl1250 is the recommended driver.

Alternativly, you can try selecting theHP-IIp/IId/III* driver. This should correspond to theljet2p Ghostscript driver. It only prints at 300×300, but that is fine for text and the simple graphics.

lpr -J "PageSize=A4" file.ps
lpr -j "PageSize=A4" file.ps
lpr -o "PageSize=A4" file.ps
lpr -Z "PageSize=A4" file.ps
lpr -T "PageSize=A4" file.ps

If this does not work, you have a very weird version of LPD. Try the following:

Edit/usr/local/lib/printer/brother-1440 searching for a line like'default' ⇒ 'Letter', and replacing the'Letter' by 'A4'. Now jobs should be printed in A4 format.

Replace

'default' => 'Letter'

by 'default' ⇒ 'A4'

This can happen when duplex printing is specified in both the input file and the PPD.

Here are the steps to get 600×600 printing working. This has been tested with CUPS-1.1.6-1, redhat-7.1.

1) Generated a PPD file fromPPD-O-Matic with hl1250 driver and save it to /usr/share/cups/model.

2) Installed thecupsomatic perl script to/usr/lib/cups/filter. cupsomatic will be replaced by foomatic-rip about Mar 2003. There is an archived copy available.http://www.openprinting.org/torsten/cupsomatic

3) chmod 755 /usr/lib/cups/filter

3) Install foomatic-gswrapper to /usr/bin/

3) chmod 755 /usr/bin/foomatic-gswrapper

4) Installmpage-2.5.1-5 if needed.

5) Setup the printer via CUPS's web interface http://localhost:631

7) Install ghostscript-6.51.

8) Use ghostview-3.5.8 to open a pdf or ps file and use lpr from ghostview's print menu.

10) If you are using 600×600, change to 1200×600 from CUPS's web interface, http://localhost:631/printers and then every thing should work fine.

Brother HL-1450 (USB)

To use the Brother HL-1450 with CUPS, you will need the PPD from the install CD called /cdrom/Driver/PS/PPD/ENGLISH/BRHL14_1.PPD The file called /cdrom/Driver/PS/PPD/ENGLISH/BRHL14_2.PPD is for theBrother HL-1470N . Make sure you havecreated the USB device.

An important thing to do in CUPS is select Configure Printer and selectLetter as the default media type.A4 is the default, and if you use that on normal sized paper, your job will fail.

This printer is a GDI printer, and is probably a paperweight. Untested.

This printer is not a postscript printer, but should work similarly to the HL-5050, untested.

This printer is a postscript printer, and works almost flawlessly.

PostScript resolution: 1200×1200 pxlmono: 1200×1200 hl1250: 1200×600

This resolution is not directly supported by any current free software drivers.

This printer is a PostScript printer, it works almost flawlessly.

The printer only supports 144MB, even if you install 256MB.

Press the Go button three times. This is not easy to accomplish.

Try running xpp and save the default margins.

Brother HL-1660e

Change the printing language to both PCL and PostScript. This can be done from the front panel. See Chapter 4-11 of the HL-166e User's Manual,MODE Switch Settings in BR-Script 2 Mode

BR-Script is Brother's implementation of PostScript Level 2.

It would be better to use a Brother PPD file, available from the Windows/Mac driver CD.

This printer supports PostScript printing. The best driver to <a href=“cups-faq.html#which_ppd”>PPD file from the manufacturer.</a>

It works with the config for anMFC-9050, which uses thehl7x0 driver.

• hl7x0
• ljet4

The ljet4 give worse quality at 300dpi, and printing at 600dpi outputs twice the expected size. Please report successes to the forums Forum: Printers from Brother .

gs -sDEVICE=hl7x0 -r600

Foomatic has supported the -r600 option for a year and a half. See thehl7x0 driver page.

The ljet4 driver sends the correct codes for 600dpi, but the printer ignores them. The document describing the codes is called LASER_TECH_MN.pdf but it disappeared with Brother's site redesign. The document is 441 pages long, and the old site was here: http://solutions.brother.com/Library/pdf/LASER_TECH_MN.pdf

.600dpi was tested working with this filterhttp://www.mit.edu/people/marc/brothermfc8500-filter

Here is how it works: The gs filter lines were made into pipe lines, so that the output would be run through magicfilter again. Then, I changed the cat line for the PCL reset code to wrap the document with some PJL commands to set the resolution:

.0       \033E\033       cat     "\e%-12345X@PJL\n@PJL SET RESOLUTION = \
.600\n@PJL ENTER LANGUAGE = PCL\n" "\n\e%-12345X"

This seems to work, and even gives better aligned output than the hl7x0 driver does on my printer.

I'm interested to hear if others can reproduce my results.Marc Horowitz

Brother MFC-9600,Foomatic +hl1250

Device URI: usb:/dev/usb/lp0