OpenPrinting database - Printer: Brother HL-1240

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Brother HL-1240
BW laser printer, max. 600x600 dpi, works Mostly
Recommended driver: hl1250 (Home page, view PPD, download PPD) Generic instructions for: CUPS, LPD, LPRng, PPR, PDQ, no spooler

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Edited Notes

In contrary to some of the user's comments below, this printer works well with the "hl1250" driver, a driver based on "ljet4" but preceeding the job with Brother-specific PJL commands, especially the one to set the resolution as shown below.

Brother provides a driver, too, but binary-only and only for LPD/LPRng. According to the printout quality it is based on the "ljet4" Ghostscript driver. "pxlmono", "gimp-print" (600 dpi), and "hpijs-pcl5e" (600 dpi) give a better grayscale quality and all special features of the printer are accessible by PJL commands.

Old comments from users:

Roger (rogern at linuxfreemail dot com) reports that the "hl1250" driver works, but with incorrect margins.

Works great using the HP LaserJet 4/5/6 ("ljet4") driver and Ghostscript.
600dpi not supported via PCL alone, you must preface jobs with a PJL statement:

The easiest way to do this is by adding the following line to your printcap file:

:ld=\033%-12345X@PJL\r\n@PJL SET RESOLUTION=600\r\n:

Otherwise, just send the following string to the printer befor you send the output of Ghostscript:

<ESC>%-12345X@PJL SET RESOLUTION=600

as well as selecting 600 dpi from the Ghostscript command line.

This printer has 2MB memory, which cannot be extended; this may not be enough for all jobs at 600dpi. Until someone says otherwise, I want this printer to be marked imperfect because of this memory issue.

The above steps may not work if you have RedHat 6.0 or previous versions. I was able to get the printer working with an HP LaserJet driver and 300 dpi. 600dpi did not work well at all.

There's a discussion around the special driver for this printer; apparently it's got a bug of some sort. I guess the other drivers still work, but it's all a bit unclear right now.

Consumables/Refills: Toner ($50)

User Notes

RT090503: Upgrading to openSUSE 11.1 I lost the driver (as explained below).
Started CUPs in browser with localhost:631. Selected printer driver
Brother HL-1230 Foomatic/hl1250(recommended) and selected options (a.o. 600x600).
Runs fine locally. Network printing not tried.

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