On a UNIX server

The following commands work from our UNIX servers.

To print Plain Text files use print5 to print on the double sided laser printer PS4 outside room 664 e.g.:-

print5 myfile.dat

There are a number of variants of the print5 command, for example:-

print5L 		  Landscape.  Use if lines are longer than 80 chars.


print5_2up 		  2 pages of file on each sheet of paper.


print5L_2up 		  Landscape, 2 pages per sheet.

Originally PS4 was on level 5, hence the 5 in the commands names.

Use the equivalent print6... command to print on the single sided laser printer PS1 outside room 615.

To print Postscript files use print5p or print6p.

A quick way to find out what other print commands are available is to start by typing:-

which print5

This command tells you which file will be executed when you type print5. The reply should be something like:-

/usr/local/bin/print5

so now you type:-

ls -l /usr/local/bin/print*

to see what other print commands there are. Alternatively check the web:-

http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/computing/particle_physics/Unix/pp_unix_faq.html

On any UNIX system, the commands to send files to a print queue, check on its progress and remove it, all start lp (line printer).

To check on status of printer queues use the lpstat command. Typing:-

lpstat -a

will list all those queues that are currently active. The file:-

/etc/printcap

contains a complete list of printers specifying their queue characteristics. The first line of each entry gives a list of alternative names for a printer e.g. level5p and ps4p . By convention each entry is preceded by a description of the printer e.g.:-

# The main double sided postscript printer on level5
# use the print5 and print5p commands.
level5p|ps4p:

To print any type of file use the lpr command with the -P option designating the printer name e.g. to print myfile on printer xxx type:-

lpr -Pxxxx myfile

replacing xxxx by ps4p for Postscript to PS4.

To see what entries you currently have in the queue type:-

lpq -Pxxxx

and to remove an entry type:-

lprm -Pxxxx yyy

where yyy is the job number as given by the lpq command.