I am using Ubuntu Karmic with CUPS 1.4.0 and Ghostscript 8.70. On this system I have HPLIP 3.9.8 and I have set up printers with the hpcups driver and the dynamically generated PPD files. I have tested with the HP PhotoSmart C8180 and the HP Color LaserJet 3600. The document with which I have tested is the new test page of CUPS 1.4. If duplex is turned on it prints twice, once on the front and once on the back of the paper. For the PhotoSmart C8180 special paper size entries for duplex are available and I have chosen the A4-duplex page size. On the Color LaserJet 3600 I have used the standard A4 page size.
Single-sided printing and also the front side of the pages when printing duplex are OK. Problems are only with the back sides when printing duplex:
On the PhotoSmart C8180 (probably also on most other HP inkjets) the back side content is moved down by 2-3 mm (1/10 inches) which makes the upper border of the black frame of the test page not having the same distance to the top edge of the sheet as the upper border on the front size. You see this easily if you hold the page against the light. The lower black border is moved out of the printable area ny this and therefore diappaers.
The same happens with the HP Color LaserJet 3600, but with a shift of 4-5 mm (1/4 inches) more gets lost at the lower border, here even the lower parts of "CUPS Test Page".
I have tested at first whether the problem is cause by the filter chain, running the following command lines:
cupsfilter -p /etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_C8100_series.ppd -e -m ap/etc/cups/ppd/Photosmart_C8100_series.ppdplication/vnd.cups-raster -o PageSize=A4Duplex -o Duplex=DuplexNoTumble /usr/share/cups/data/testprint > PS_C8100.out 2> PS_C8100.err
cupsfilter -p /etc/cups/ppd/Color_LaserJet_3600.ppd -e -m application/vnd.cups-raster -o PageSize=A4 -o Duplex=DuplexNoTumble /usr/share/cups/data/testprint > CLJ3600.out 2> CLJ3600.err
The *.err files do not show any errors. The *.out files I have displayed with rasterview (http://www.easysw.com/~mike/rasterview/) and rasterview shows the full test page, with black border all around for both the front and the back side and for both the PhotoSmart C8180 and the Color LaserJet 3600.
So the problem must be somewhere in the driver, adjusting the printing position of the back sides badly.
Isn't this one also a duplicate of
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