Sending a job to a printer (lpr)

Previewing files before you print

Before you send a job to a printer, check the file carefully to make sure that it is ready to print. To display a plain text file (ASCII), you can can use these commands:

• more filename
• less filename

You can also use an editor such as NEDIT or PICO. To view another type of file, use the previewing feature of the application that created it.

Printing from an application

In most X Window/Motif applications, select Print from the File pulldown menu. If there is also a Print... option, you can select it to change print settings, e.g., number of copies and range of pages.

Printing from the command line

On UNIX/Linux machines, the file you wish to print is a "PostScript" file with a .ps extension. To print a file that has been formatted for printing, type lpr (line print) followed by the file name or the path to the file, e.g., lpr filename.ps or lpr dir/filename.ps.

The workstation you use will automatically route your files to a particular printer, usually a local one in your office or lab (see list at http://print.ncsu.edu/listofprinters.php) . However, you can route print jobs to other printers by either (1) selecting the printer you want from the Printer options available inside the application, or (2) printing to a file and then sending the file to the printer you specify. The latter is done by adding -P after the lpr command followed immediately (no space) by the name of the printer you want to use (see list at left) and the print-formatted file you want to print. For example, if you want to print to the printer in 242 Daniels, you would specify that printer's name and the file you want to print, e.g., lpr -Pdan242 file.ps.

To see what print jobs are queued for the printer, type lpq. To remove a print job before it prints, type lprm job#. You can only remove your own print jobs. On UNIX, the default printer is set in the PRINTER environment variable. To find out your default printer, type printenv PRINTER. You can change the default printer by typing setenv PRINTER followed by the name of the printer you want to use. When you want to specify a printer other than the default, use the -P option (see above) to override the default setting in your environment.

You can use this list to find out where each printer on the network is located. This can be especially handy if the default printer is very busy.

Changing the default printer

To find out your default printer, type

printenv PRINTER

To change it, type

setenv PRINTER followed by the name of the printer you want to use as the default.

Using the -P option will always override the default setting.

Go to the Print tutor main page.

Last modified on August 19, 2004 by cawalker.