Printing Files in Unix at UW CSE

Like everything else in Unix, printing is most commonly done at the command line. Here are some common printing-related commands and options. As always, to find more information, use man or info.

lpr

Your plain-vanilla line printer. lpr can handle plain-text passably well, but you should only use lpr when printing PostScript (i.e. .ps) files. Some options to pass to lpr:

• -P<printer name> - Specifies which printer to print to.
• -h - Removes the header page (the almost-blank sheet of paper with your CSE login)
• -Z<option> - Add special printing options. The only really useful option is duplex, which prints double-sided.

Examples:

• lpr -Pps231 -h cse341-research-paper.ps
  Prints the PostScript file cse341-research-paper.ps to the printer in 231, omitting the header page.
• lpr -Pps232 -Zduplex -h BSTree.cc
  Prints the C++ file BSTree.cc double-sided to the printer in 232, omitting the header page.

enscript

A fancier, more powerful way to print files. Do NOT use enscript to print anything but plain-text! Printing (for example) PostScript files using enscript will probably jam the printer with 200 pages of random characters. Useful options include:

• -P<printer name> - Specifies which printer to print to.
• -h - Removes the header page (the almost-blank sheet of paper with your CSE login)
• -D<option> - Send a printer-specific command to enscript. To print double-sided, try -DDuplex:true -DTumble:true.
• -2 - Print two columns per page. Really useful with the -r option.
• -r - Rotate each page 90 degrees, so that pages are in "landscape" mode.
• -C or --line-numbers - Print line numbers (useful for printing code!).
• -G or --fancy-header - Print a pretty ("gaudy") per-page banner.
• -B or --no-header - Do not print any per-page banner.
• --word-wrap - Wrap too-long lines along word-boundaries.

Examples:

• enscript -Pps329 -h cse-341-research-paper.ps
  Jams the printer in 329 with your header-less PostScript file.
• enscript -DDuplex:true -DTumble:true -Pps232 -hG2r BSTree.hh BSTree.cc
  Prints the C++ files BSTree.hh and BSTree.cc double-sided to the printer in 232, omitting the header page. Each page has a pretty banner, and is split into two columns. Text is printed in landscape mode.
• enscript -Pps329 -2r -C -B --word-wrap HelloWorld.java
  Prints the Java file HelloWorld.java single-sided to the printer in 329. Text is rotated and printed in two columns, and lines are numbered. No banner is printed on each page. Lines are wrapped intelligently.

lpq

Ever wonder who's the jerk who's printing War and Peace when your project is due in 10 minutes? Check the print queue to find out the status of all the print jobs (including jobs sent from Windows!). The only option you need is:

• -P<printer name> - Specifies which printer to check.

lprm

lprm removes jobs from the print queue. In fact, since the Windows print queue sends its files to the Unix queues, you can kill jobs with lprm that you weren't fast enough to kill from Windows. Useful options and arguments include:

• -P<printer name> - Specifies which printer.
• <username> - Remove all print jobs sent by username.
• <job numbers> - Remove print jobs specified by job number (use lpq to get the job numbers).

Examples:

• lprm -Pps329 joeuser
  Removes all of joeuser's files waiting to be printed in 329.
• lprm -Pps231 2 4 5
  Removes jobs 2, 4, and 5 from the queue in 231.