My wife and I downloaded PDF museum passes and printed them on the same PostScript laser printer. To my surprise, hers looked much better! On the left is the printout from her Mac, and on the right the one sent from my Debian Linux machine. I am using evince 3.14.1, libcairo2 1.15.8, cups 2.1.3, and the Internet Printing Protocol to talk to the H-P LaserJet Pro 400 MFP M425dn (any other factor that could matter?).
Apparently, the printer is somehow not executing the PostScript content, which should yield a high-resolution rendering. But I am not aware of requiring that the content be pre-rendered on my desktop nor would I seek that.
What have I got set up wrong and how can I increase the output quality?
Best Answer
Solved it. The pages were being rendered on the computer because I had chosen a LaserJet driver from the Hewlett-Packard section of the CUPS printer management interface, implemented using Gutenprint. This worked fine for B&W text but poorly for color areas.
After still not seeing a "PostScript" option in the configurator, I chose "Raw", and this works: now the rendering happens in the printer, making the paper output look proper with both graphics and text. Thanks to all for your help!