[831] in linux-announce channel archive
Linux Printing Usage HOWTO -- alpha version 1.0
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lars Wirzenius)
Sun Jul 23 05:16:58 1995
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 1995 14:48:39 +0300
From: Lars Wirzenius <wirzeniu@cc.helsinki.fi>
To: linux-activists@niksula.hut.fi, linux-announce@vger.rutgers.edu
X-Mn-Key: announce
From: MATTHEW W FOSTER <mwf@engr.uark.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Subject: Linux Printing Usage HOWTO -- alpha version 1.0
Approved: linux-announce@news.ornl.gov (Lars Wirzenius)
Organization: ?
Followup-to: comp.os.linux.misc
As some people may know, I am the new maintainer of the Linux Printing
HOWTO. When this task was bestowed upon me, I decided to do a complete
rewrite of the current HOWTO. In fact, I decided to do it one better:
I broke it into two HOWTO. The first part is what you're looking at
here. It is more like a mini-HOWTO than a HOWTO, but that decision is
up to Greg Hankins, not me. This HOWTO discusses how to print and
print preview in the Linux environment.
I am posting it in comp.os.linux.announce in hopes that some people
will read it and HOPEFULLY comment on it. I am wanting to know what
YOU think. Do you like the format? Do you think that the HOWTO covers
enough information? Am I misinformed in some area? Is there something
that I left out? Anything. I am wanting you to help make it a better
HOWTO. Any comments can be sent to mwf@engr.uark.edu, or posted on one of
the other newsgroups (since this one is moderated).
The other part of the HOWTO is still under develpoment. It will be
called the Linux Printing Setup HOWTO. It will contain information on
everything that you could ever want to know about installing, configuring,
and maintaining the print system for you Linux environment. You can
expect to see an alpha version for it within the next few weeks (no less
than three, sorry). If you want me to mail you a copy of it directly
when I am finished, please say so in a message to me.
Again, all comments, criticisms, and suggestions can be sent to me
at mwf@engr.uark.edu. Also, you can check out the WWW page that I'm
working on for the printing HOWTOs. The URL is
<http://www.engr.uark.edu/~mwf/pht/>
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
--mwf
--
Matt Foster
Linux Printing HOWTO Maintainer
http://www.engr.uark.edu/~mwf/
------------------------------------------------------------------
The Linux Printing Usage HOWTO
by Matt Foster <mwf@engr.uark.edu>
v1.0a, July 1995
1. Introduction
This document describes how to use the line printer spooling system
provided with the Linux operating system.
1.1. Linux Printing HOWTO History
This version of the Linux Printing HOWTO is a complete rewrite of the
one originally written by Grant Taylor <grant@god.tufts.edu> and Brian
McCauley <B.A.McCauley@bham.ac.uk>. I have tried to keep with the
coverage of material presented by Grant and Brian's HOWTO, but I have
drastically modified the style of presentation, and the depth of
material covered. I feel that this makes the HOWTO more complete, and
easier to read. I can only hope that you agree.
1.2. Copyrights and Trademarks
Some names mentioned in this HOWTO are claimed as copyrights and/or
trademarks of certain persons and/or companies. These names appear in
full or initial caps in this HOWTO.
The Linux Printing Usage HOWTO v1.0a (c) 1995 Matt Foster.
Unless otherwise stated, Linux HOWTO documents are copyrighted by
their respective authors. Linux HOWTO documents may be reproduced and
distributed in whole or in part, in any medium physical or electronic,
as long as this copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial
redistribution is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would
like to be notified of any such distributions.
All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating
any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice.
That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose
additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules
may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux
HOWTO coordinator at the address given below.
In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through
as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright
on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to
redistribute the HOWTOs.
If you have questions, please contact Greg Hankins, the Linux HOWTO
coordinator, at <gregh@sunsite.unc.edu>. You may finger this address
for phone number and additional contact information.
1.3. Downloading the Linux Printing HOWTOs
It is recommended that if you want to print a copy of this HOWTO, that
you download the PostScript version. It is formatted in a fashion
that is aesthetically appealing, and easier to read. You can get the
PostScript version from one of the many Linux distribution sites (such
as SunSITE <ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/Linux/docs/HOWTO/>), or directly
from my World-Wide Web site at <http://www.engr.uark.edu/~mwf/pht/>
(not fully active yet).
1.4. Feedback
If you have questions, comments, or corrections for this HOWTO, please
feel free to get in touch with me via email at <mwf@engr.uark.edu> or
<printing@ennio.uark.edu> (not yet implemented).
2. Printing Under Linux
This section discusses how to print files, examine the print queue,
remove jobs from the print queue, format files before printing them,
and configure your printing environment.
2.1. History
The Linux printing system---the lp system---is a port of the source
code written by the Regents of the University of California for the
Berkeley Software Distribution version of the UNIX operating system.
It first appeared on the BSD scene in version 4.2BSD of that software.
2.2. Basic Printing
By far, the easiest way to print in the Linux operating system is to
send the file to be printed directly to the printing device. One way
to do this is to use the cat command. An example is
newton$ cat PrincipiaMathematica > /dev/lp
In this case, /dev/lp is a symbolic link to the actual printing
device--be it a plotter, typesetter, laser printer, or a lowly dot-
matrix. (See ln(1) for more information on symbolic links.)
A more refined way to print a file is to use lpr. The lpr command
takes care of all of the initial work needed to print the file, and
then it hands control over to another program, lpd, the line printing
daemon. The line printing daemon is responsible for telling the
printer what needs to be printed.
When you use lpr, the specified file(s) is copied to a directory (the
spool directory) where it waits its turn in line until lpd gets around
to printing it.
Lpr has a very familiar syntax. It accepts a set of options and a
list of files to be printed.
newton$ lpr [ options ] [ filename ... ]
If a filename is not specified, lpr assumes that the input should come
from standard input (usually the keyboard, or another program's
output). This enables the user to redirect a command's output to the
printing device. As such,
newton$ cat PrincipiaMathematica | lpr
or, something even more common, like
newton$ pr -l60 -o2 PrincipiaMathematica | lpr
The lpr command accepts several command-line arguments that allow you
to control how it works. Some of the most widely used arguments are:
-Pprinter, specifies the printer to use; -h, suppresses printing of
the burst page; -s, create a symbolic link instead of copying the
entire file to the spool directory (useful for large files); -#num,
specifies the number of copies to print; and -m, mail user when the
printing is completed.
For example, suppose the user isaac types the following command on his
system, newton.
newton$ lpr -msP dj PrincipiaMathematica
This command would create a symbolic link to the file
PrincipiaMathematica in the spool directory for the printer named dj,
where it will eventually be processed by lpd. Upon completion, lpd
would mail the user with a notice.
2.3. Viewing the Print Queue
Sometimes it is useful to know what jobs are currently in a particular
printer's queue. This is the sole task of the lpq command.
The syntax for lpq is very similar to that for lpr.
newton$ lpq -Pdj
dj is ready and printing
Rank Owner Job Files Total Size
active isaac 31 PrincipiaMathematica 7682048 bytes
To see the queue of the system's default printer, you can use the
following
newton$ lpq
no entries
2.4. Canceling a Print Job
Another useful feature of any printing system is the ability to cancel
a job that you have previously queued. To do this, use lprm.
newton$ lprm -Pdj -
The above command cancels all of the print jobs that are owned by the
user isaac (if isaac issued the command) in the dj printer's queue. A
single print job can be canceled by first getting the job number as
reported by lpq, and then giving that number to lprm. For example,
newton$ lprm -Pdj 31
would cancel job 31 (PrincipiaMathematica) on the printer dj.
2.5. Formatting
Since most ASCII files are not formatted for printing, it is useful to
format them before they are actually printed. This may include
putting a title and page number on each page, setting the margins,
double spacing, indenting, or printing a file in multiple columns. A
common way to do this is to use a print preprocessor such as pr.
newton$ pr +4 -2 -l60 -o2 PrincipiaMathematica | lpr -Pdj
In the above example, pr would take the file PrincipiaMathematica and
skip the first three pages (+4), print the rest of the file in two
columns (-2), set the page length to sixty lines (-l60), and indent
all lines by two spaces (-o2). Then lpr would print it to the printer
dj.
2.6. The PRINTER Environment Variables
Instead of having to specify a printer to use every time that you
print, you can set the PRINTER environment variable to the name of the
printer that you want to use. This is accomplished in different ways
for each shell. For bash you can do this with PRINTER="printer_name";
export PRINTER; in csh, you can do it with setenv PRINTER
"printer_name". These commands can be placed in your login scripts,
or issued on the command-line.
2.7. Printing PostScript files
Printing PostScript files on a printer that has a PostScript
interpreter is simple; just use lpr, and the printer will take care of
all of the details for you. For those of us that don't have printers
with PostScript capabilities, we have to resort to other means.
Luckily, there are programs available that can make sense of
PostScript, and translate it into a language that most printers will
understand. Probably the most well known of these programs is
GhostScript.
GhostScript's responsibility is to convert all of the descriptions in
a PostScript file to commands that the printer will understand.
GhostView is an interface to GhostScript for the X Window System. It
allows for you to preview a PostScript file before you print it.
3. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How do I prevent the staircase effect?
A1. The staircase effect is caused by the way some printers expect
lines to be terminated. Some printers want lines that end with a
carriage-return/line-feed sequence (DOS-style) instead of the default
line-feed sequence used for UNIX-type systems. The easiest way to fix
this is to see if your printer can switch between the two styles
somehow---either by flipping a DIP switch, or by sending an escape
sequence at the start of each print job. To do the latter, you need
to create a simple I/O filter (see Q2 and Foster95b).
Q2. What is a filter?
A2. A filter is a program that reads from standard input (stdin),
performs some action on this input, and writes to standard output
(stdout). Filters are used for a lot of things, including text
processing.
4. Troubleshooting
This section covers some common things that can go wrong with your
printing system.
o lpd: connect: No such file or device
5. References
This is a section of references on the Linux printing system. I have
tried to keep the references section of this HOWTO as focused as
possible. If you feel that I have forgotten a significant reference
work, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Welsh, Matt. Linux Installation and Getting Started
Foster, Matt. Linux Printing Setup HOWTO
the supplement to this HOWTO; covers topics such as
setting up, and configuring the print software
Manual Pages
o cat(1) -- concatenate and print files
o lpd(8) -- line printer spooler daemon
o lpq(1) -- spool queue examination program
o lpr(1) -- off-line printer
o lprm(1) -- remove jobs from the line printer spooling
queue
o pr(1) -- convert text files for printing
USENET newsgroups
o comp.os.linux.* a plethora of information on Linux
o comp.sys.bsd.* focuses on BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and
the like
o comp.unix.* discussions relating to the UNIX operating
system
6. Colophon
This HOWTO was written using vi, the ultimate editor; the human mind,
the ultimate computer; and a little imagination, the ultimate power
tool. The machine of choice was a Gateway2000 i486/50 running the
Slackware 2.2 distribution with the Linux 1.3.4 kernel. The original
document was written in mark-up format using Linuxdoc-SGML (a hacked
version of Tom Gordon's QWERTZ DTD). The HOWTO was then emailed to
many important people, including Greg Hankins, the Linux Documentation
Project coordinator. There it was converted to PostScript, LaTeX,
ASCII, and HTML formats. Finally it was posted on the USENET, and
placed in the Linux archives found on the SunSITE FTP/WWW servers for
easy Internet access.
7. TODO
o information on printing tex files
o graphics printing
o fonts
o troff/groff
o print previewing
o dvgt
o GhostScript
o GhostView
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