Using Central Printers from Unix

published by Information Technologie Services

Handout PAG 303

June 2006

Overview

The central printers connected to Project Vincent workstations are typically either a laser printer or older, dot-matrix printers. The primary difference between the two is the type of files they will print: laser printers will print either PostScript or plain text files, while the dot-matrix printers will only print plain text files. Both of these printers use the same command to print.

The basic print command is the lpr command:


			lpr [options] [files ...]

where [options] is a combination of any of the options listed below and [files ...] are the names of the files you are printing.

1 Options

Here are some of the common options for the lpr command:

-Pprinter

This will send the output to the printer listed, rather than the default printer. If you do not supply this option, the output will go to your default printer (set by the PRINTER environment variable, typically by the line setenv PRINTER printer_queue in your .environment file). If you do not have a default printer set, it will go to the system-wide default printer, a black-and-white laser printer in 95 Durham Center and your output will appear in a bin in 139 Durham Center. Common printer queues are:

du139_lj4, the black-and-white printer with output delivered to the bins in 139 Durham Center;
du139_color, the color printer with output delivered to the bins in 139 Durham Center; and
du139-lj5, the self-serve, black-and-white printer in 139 Durham Center.

-Bbin

When you print to the central printers in Durham Center, your output is delivered to the bins in 139 Durham Center. You can specify the bin number your print output will be delivered to. Bin numbers must be between 201 and 475. If you do not specify a bin number, the output will be put in your default bin (set by the BIN environment variable, typically by the line setenv BIN bin_number in your .environment file).

-Ggrant

There are two print grants used for printing. Students have by default a $5 printing subsidy provided through their computer fee. This grant is called subsidy_netid. All accounts have a U-bill grant, called ubill_netid, that allows you to charge up to $50 in printing to your university bill. If you do not specify a grant, the output will be charged to your default grant (set by the GRANT environment variable, typically by the line setenv GRANT grant_name in your .environment file). If you do not set a default grant, your printing will be charged against your subsidy grant.

-Fform

This will set the type of paper your print job prints on. By default, this is:

3hol (three-hole white paper) on the black-and-white printer, and
bond (white paper) on the color printer.

Another common form is tran (transparencies). Costs on the black-and-white printers are:

$.07 for bond and 3hol forms per side
$.40 for tran form

Color printing and other forms cost more.

-S1

Prints one-sided. The default is two-sided.

2 Examples

Print the document foo.ps with all the defaults (duplex, black-and-white, three-hole paper, delivered to your bin in 139 Durham Center):


			lpr foo.ps

Print the document foo.ps in color, single-sided on bond, and delivered to bin 314:


			lpr -Pdu139_color -B314 -Fbond -S1 foo.ps

Print the document bar.txt to the self-serve printer and charge to your U-bill grant:


			lpr -Pdu139-lj5 -Gubill_netid bar.txt

3 Using with Iowa State Linux

If you have installed Iowa State Linux and installed the isulpr package, you can print to the central printers with your Linux machine. To check if you have the isulpr package, type:


			rpm --q isulpr-1-0.1

If that returns the line isulpr-1-0.1, you have isulpr installed.

To use the isulpr command, simply replace the command lpr with the command:


			/usr/athena/bin/lpr

More information on printing from Linux is available in handout LAG 320 "Using Central Printers from Linux".

4 More Information

Additional options for the lpr command can be found by entering man lpr at a command prompt. For more information contact the Solution Center, 195 Durham Center, , 515-294-4000.

Using Central Printers from Unix was written by Solution Center staff.

For more assistance, contact the Solution Center, 195 Durham Center, 515-294-4000, or by email at .

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