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I've gotten two old Ricoh Aficio 1018 laser printers in more or less perfect working conditions. These are A3 B/W office copiers from a long gone era, but since the are still looking good I don't want to throw them away.

The official Ricoh site has drivers for Windows, Mac and Windows Server, but for Linux they only have a "Unix Connection Utility" which requires a TCP/IP connection to the printer, which mine doesn't offer. Mine only has a parallel port on the back which I've connected an parallel->USB adapter to.

The real problem I'm having is that there are no official Linux drivers out there. I've checked the openprinting.org database and they only have the Aficio 1022 listed, but not the Aficio 1018. I've installed it as a 1022 in CUPS and it printed the test page just fine, both in A4 (letter) and in A3. Unfortunately any other page I'm trying to print, no matter if it is pdf, txt, or a website the printer is only producing garbage. It prints A3 pages with only a single line on the top with random characters, sometimes just one character alone..

It would be awesome if anyone could help me here or point me in the right direction.

petl
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  • the link on openprinting for the 1022 allows one to view the ppd file; that they say is perfect for the 1022; I wonder if you download the ppd; edit it to say 1018 instead; the default is that installed ppds are in /etc/cups/ppd. The database is in /usr/share/ppd so if you save the edited ppd to etc/cups/ppd and then set up a NEW printer from the printer folder; select the use ppd option; point the system to your edited 1018 ....... any joy? – pdc Dec 11 '17 at 07:47
  • Thanks for the help. I can use the 1022 ppd file and it also lets me print the ubuntu test page without a problem. But I can't print anything else, like stated in my op.. – petl Dec 11 '17 at 08:54
  • In the database that Ubuntu offers; in the PRINTERS setup option; there are many Ricoh variants listed; can I suggest you work your way through those; to do that, I would suggest going to PROPERTIES of a printer; by right-clicking on the icon in the PRINTERS folder; drag the window to the right to see more; click on CHANGE; wait while it searches; choose RICOH; they offer the pxlmono but the 1018 seems to precede that; so foomatic; ghostscript etc as are offered and see if any joy? – pdc Dec 11 '17 at 16:06
  • Unfortunately I didn't find anything better than the 1022 and it didn't work. – petl Dec 15 '17 at 15:20

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