When I use xpdf to print a PDF file of "letter" page size such as the
test file attached (using the "lpr" command, which is the default),
the file is printed in A3 instead of A4. If I use "lpr file.pdf"
directly, I get A4 output as expected.

Note: the /etc/cups/client.conf file contains:

ServerName lipps.lip.ens-lyon.fr:443
Encryption Required

(this is the print server at my lab).

The cause is that xpdf uses pdftops before sending the output to lpr.
Indeed, as I've said on

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=781253#72

I have exactly the same problem when I run pdftops manually then lpr
on the generated .ps file. So, this is not really a bug in xpdf,
except one may wonder whether it should use pdftops.

I'd say that the problem with the .ps file may come from the printer
configuration (or the PPD file used on the print server?). A possible
cause is that the letter format is a bit wider than A4, and that
would be why the printer uses A3 instead of A4.

Hi,

pdftops is a frontend to the poppler library, which is also used by xpdf
to generate the PostScript that is then sent to lpr (or written to a
file).

But since you said (in 2015) that this not a bug in xpdf, and the
above-mentioned bug has fixed versions (though has not been closed,
perhaps by mistake?), do you think this should be reassigned to pdftops
/ poppler, or has it become obsolete and solved in ghostscript?

Florian

Not a bug in xpdf, but I wonder why xpdf converts the file to ps.