CSL: Printing FAQ

NOTE: We are in the process of replacing some of the public printers with HP4350N Laser Jet Printers. Changes to this page reflect that effort.

General information on the CS Lab printers is given below. Please also see the printer info page: http://www.cs.duke.edu/csl/facilities/printers

Printing Systems: LPRng vs. CUPS

For many years, the C.S. department has been using LPRng as the primary printing system. This is most noticeable from UNIX (Solaris and Linux). (And, in fact, much of is this page is written for UNIX usage.) Due to a reduction of support and development for LPRng, we've been working towards moving the printing system to CUPS. Due to some as-yet unresolved issues with the CUPS installation, we've not announced it or switched over to it, but there is a partially functional CUPS installation available on the C.S. network.

Some applications - especially on Linux - will auto-detect the presense of a CUPS server, and will then use only that; examples are OpenOffice and Firefox.

OpenOffice:
To disable CUPS, you will need to set this environment variable: SAL_DISABLE_CUPS=1. This can either be set in your startup files, or can be used with a command-line invocation. For help with this, please contact the Lab Staff.

Firefox:
For Firefox, we have disabled CUPS auto-detection by default. If you want to use CUPS, you'll need to do this:

To make this permanent, you might also need to add this line: 
    user_pref("print.postscript.cups.enabled", true);
to the file: ~/.firefox/{name}/{number}.slt/user.js.
For help with this, please contact the Lab Staff.

Printers and Basic Printer Commands

In general, printers are named for the room number where they are located. Below are the names of the printers. When possible, please try to print in duplex mode (both sides of the sheet) to save paper.

Queue names* Location Use Modes**

Dell 5310n's
128 pr128 outside D128 LSRC PUBLIC sx,dx,mf

Hewlett Packard 4M+'s
127 pr118 inside D127 LSRC PRIVATE sx,dx,mf

Hewlett Packard 4050N's
022 pr022 inside N022 North PUBLIC sx,dx,mf
112 pr112a inside D112 LSRC PRIVATE sx,dx
204 pr204a inside D204 LSRC PRIVATE sx,dx,mf
admin pr312a inside D312 LSRC PRIVATE sx,dx,mf

Hewlett Packard 4050TN
315 pr315a inside D315 LSRC PRIVATE sx,dx,mf,ut,lh

Hewlett Packard 4350DN's
020 pr020 inside N020 North PUBLIC sx,dx,mf
225 pr225n inside N225 North PUBLIC sx,dx,mf
109 pr109 outside D109 LSRC PUBLIC sx,dx,mf
211 pr211 outside D211 LSRC PUBLIC sx,dx,mf
230 pr230 outside D230 LSRC PUBLIC sx,dx,mf
312 pr312 outside D312 LSRC PUBLIC sx,dx,mf
331 pr331 outside D331 LSRC PUBLIC sx,dx,mf

Hewlett Packard 4650DTN Color Printer
color pr108c inside D108 LSRC PUBLIC *** ut,lt,tr

The lpr command is the most basic way of sending print jobs (files, documents, etc.) to a printer. Some other commands are mentioned below. In other instances, printing may be initialed directly from some application running on your workstation or Windows PC. More information is available in the Windows printing FAQ. For information about printing from the wireless network, please see the wireless printing instructions.

*NOTE: Printers can be accessed via: lpr -Pqueuename

**NOTE: The queue names listed above can be modified by adding modes to the end with a dash (see below). The available modes are:

Examples:

lpr -P128-dx myfile
will cause your job to be printed double-sided on printer 128.
lpr -P020-mf yourfile
will result in a manual feed request at printer 020.

It is a good idea to use environment variables to hold the queuename of the printer that you use the most. That way, you do not have to type the -P option. For example, put this line in your .cshrc file: 

	setenv PRINTER 022-dx

Please see the lpr man page for more information.

On the HP4650DTN (color printer), -ut (uppertray) and -tr (transparency) are equivalent.

On the HP4050TN, -ut (uppertray) and -lh (letterhead) are equivalent.

***NOTE: The color printer requires special transparencies, which can be obtained from the Lab Secretary in D128. Do not use unapproved transparencies or paper in this printer! Other non-approved transparencies will melt in the printer and cause damage; i.e., they will not work!

To remove a print job, use the lprm command. To check on the status of a print queue, use the lpq command. Please see the appropriate man pages for details.

Z Options

Additional options are available via lpr's -Z flag. As with printer ``modes'', availability of these options depends on a particular printer's capabilities.

Some of the options that are available on the HP4050N printers are:

300 300 dpi resolution, draft quality
600 600 dpi resolution (default)
1200 1200 dpi resolution, very high resolution
fastres (1200 dpi only) full speed printing
fastresoff (1200 dpi only, PRORES) highest resolution, slower printing
economode uses less toner (default)
economodeoffuses more toner
simplex single-sided (default)
duplex double-sided
portrait vertical orientation (default)
landscape horizontal orientation

Additional options on appropriate printers:

letterhead letterhead tray
transparencytransparency tray
manual manual feed tray
staple staple sheets

Multiple Z options can be selected by separating them with commas, for example: 

	lpr -Z300,landscape,duplex somefile

It is impractical to try to list all options for all printers here. Using an option not applicable to a printer simply causes that option to be ignored, so it doesn't hurt to experiment. For information on particular printers, try checking the web site for that printer manufacturer, or contact the Lab Staff.

Conversions

Our printing system (LPRng) can handle quite a few types of data conversion automatically. Give it a try. If it can't print your document, you will usually receive an e-mail letting you know what happened. For example: 

	lpr -P312-dx FinalReport.pdf.gz

Note: Currently, Microsoft formats (e.g., Word documents) are not supported.

PDF's and Unusual Paper Sizes

Unfortunately, printing PDF's with page sizes other than letter will not usually transpire transparently; additional steps will probably be required. For example, to print a legal size file.pdf to printer 211, 

	acroread -toPostScript -size legal < file.pdf > file.ps
	lpr -P211-mf -Zlegal,duplex file.ps

For more information on acroread options, type acroread -help.

Saving Paper: Printing N-Up

In addition to printing in duplex mode (see above), you can save lots of paper and wear-and-tear on the printers by printing ``N-up''. This means that you reformat the print job to print 2 (2-up) or more reduced-size pages per physical page. For text files, this can be done with the enscript command, for example: 

	enscript -2r -P211-dx joesfile

For PostScript, use either of mpage or psnup. 

	psnup -2 {filename} | lpr -P020
	{some command} | mpage -2Sto -P128-dx

(mpage can also handle plain text.) For all of these commands, please see the man pages for more information.

Also, when making multiple copies of a document, please use one of the copy machines. Each page printed on a printer costs around twice as much as a page printed on a copier.

If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions, please contact the Lab Staff.