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Print How-to Guide

For Mandriva Linux 2009

Scope

How to have fun with printing and test your CUPS print system.

You are working on a new machine and want to print something, but the printer isn't installed yet. No problem, provided that there is a printer somewhere else on the network!

CUPS

The Common Unix Print System uses the well known utilities lpr and lpstat, same as always. Between those and enscript, you can send a text file to a network printer.

Of course, you can run the wizard system-config-printer to set up a network printer, but doing things manually is way more fun.

If you are adventurous, you can send a postscript file directly to the default printer using the lpr program:

# lpr -H hostname -P printername filename.ps

As an example, send a postscript or PDF file to the default printer on another machine:

$ lpr -H 192.168.1.10 test.ps
or
$ lpr -H 192.168.1.10 test.pdf

That works, because the Linux print system converts any printer to a postscript printer and can handle PDF files directly.

You can convert files to postscript using enscript:

$ echo test > test.txt
$ enscript -p test.ps test.txt

and in the good old Unix way, you can pipe things together:

$ enscript -p - test.txt | lpr -H 192.168.1.10

Read the enscript, lpr and lpstat man pages!

La Voila!