SUMMARY - Solaris 2.4 printing to Postscript

From: Jim Napier (jnapier@soe.ucsd.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 27 1997 - 14:56:38 CST


I got a lot of suggestions about what people were using that worked
even though the same things did not work for me. I finally figured out
that it was mostly a problem with the lp filter file /etc/lp/filter.table.
It was incomplete. I was missing the following key filter for my needs-

:any:any:simple:postprint:postscript:slow:/usr/lib/lp/postscript/postprint:
PAGES * = -o*,LENGTH * = -l*,MODES group = -n2,MODES group\=\\([2-9]\\) =
-n\\1,MODES portrait = -pp,MODES landscape = -pl,MODES x\=\\(\\-*[\\.0-9]*\\)
= -x\\1,MODES y\=\\(\\-*[\\.0-9]*\\) = -y\\1,MODES magnify\=\\([\\.0-9]*\\)
= -m\\1,MODES catv_filter = -I

By default the lp installation should have this filter in it, but on my
machine it did not. So, assuming you have the proper filter table and a
printer with an assigned IP hostname (e.g. "netprinter") the
sequence of commands to spool jobs directly to it via TCP/IP would be-

% lpsystem -t bsd netprinter
% lpadmin -p netprinter -s netprinter -T PS -I postscript

If you wanted to be able to access the printer by another more general
name than it's IP hostname, you would place this name after the -p
option to lpadmin (e.g. lpadmin -p othername -s netprinter).

I'm sure there could be other alternatives to this method. Using
"-T unknown -I any" as options to lpadmin was suggested by a couple
of people. But the method above was the only one I could get working.

Thanks to the following people:
Rene Occelli <rene@iusti.univ-mrs.fr>
Paul Lyons <prlyons@air.dec.state.ny.us>
Rick von Richter <rickv@mwh.com>
John D Groenveld <groenvel@cse.psu.edu>
Kevin Sheehan <Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au>

My original post-

  I have a Sparc 1000E running Solaris 2.4 that I want to set up to spool
  jobs directly to an Apple Laserwriter 16/600. The Laserwriter has its
  own IP address. I can get the system to communicate with the printer
  (its status lights blink when a job is sent), but the only way I get
  actual printouts is to send the printer preformatted Postscript. I have
  yet to figure out how to use the proper combination of lpadmin,
  lpfilter, lpsystem, and lp-whatever-the-hell-else commands to invoke
  the proper filters to convert a normal text file into Postscript on the
  fly. I know that CAP is an option, but I don't want to set up CAP when
  this printer is supposed to be able to accept print jobs via lpd
  directly. Thanks for any help.

<-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-<*>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=->
  Jim Napier jnapier@soe.ucsd.edu
  Systems Administration (619)534-5212
  School of Engineering
  UC San Diego

    "Man is nature's way of demonstrating that a little knowledge can
     be dangerous."
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