[Novalug] Printer help request

Alan McConnell alan@patriot.net
Tue Feb 27 15:18:17 EST 2007


On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 06:38:42PM -0500, Nino Pereira wrote:
> I print a text file (pepco, say) one of two ways:
> 
> 1: lpr -P lj pepco
> 
> here -P is the switch that sends the file to the laserjet (lj):
> I have also a color laser jet, clj, so that for color printing
> the command is 'lpr -P clj pepco
	Yes.  I have only one printer, which I turn on once every
	couple of weeks or so.  It is an ancient HP Laserjet Series II
	which I picked up cheap five years ago and keep for Sentimental
	Reasons.  It was State of the Art at GSFC  back in the '80s, when
	we hoi polloi were strictly enjoined from using it; a dot matrix
	banger was good enough for the likes of us<g>.

As I sketched: on my Debian/CUPS system, lpr evidently ships whatever
off to the printer(which, not being a winprinter, uses PCL to convert
the input stream further).   Whereas lp seems to be an entry to the
CUPS system, which inspects the input(probably much the same as would
the 'file' command) and determines how the file must be treated in order
to have my HP Series II handle it optimally.  When I set up CUPS, with
its crazy internal access through a browser, I had to tell CUPS about
the HP.

> if, for whatever reason, you end up with a postscript file with
> extension .ps, say pepco.ps, first convert it to pdf, like so:
> 
> ps2pdf pepco.ps
	<LOL>  Oh no!  This ancient HP dates back to the days when
	the proudest thing you could say about a printer was:  it is
	a POSTSCRIPT printer!!  So this printer eats postscript files
	for breakfast(unless it is shipped a plain old text file).

I must have blinked while the world made its move from .ps to .pdf
files<g>.

> I have to admit that you have to struggle through CUPS first.
> This is done by going to localhost-36 or something like that. Once
> you know where that is, it's straightforward IIRC.
	Yes.  I've written down how to do it, so I will be able to do
	it next time I do a reinstall.

I like Bonnie's suggestion about pulling the paper tray.

Best wishes,

Alan

-- 
Alan McConnell :  http://patriot.net/users/alan
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