CSCS Computer Lab Documentation: Printing
Printing from the Linux Command Prompt
The CSCS lab has 3 printers: the default is now a HP LaserJet 4200 Series
black and white printer (printer name "calamaro". There is a HP Color
LaserJet 4500DN (printer name "colorlj") color printer and another black
and white HP LaserJet 4000 Series printer (printer name "page". Calamaro
is a lot faster than colorlj, but if you need to print in color then use
the colorlj printer. Calamaro and colorlj are located in the open lab.
Page printer is located in the Graduate student lab. The standard command
to print a file is:
lpr filename
This will automatically use the default queue called "calamaro". The
default for this printer is duplex (double-sided). To print simplex
(one-sided), use the queue "calamaro-simplex". For example to print
"myfile.ps" to "calamaro-simplex" use the command:
lpr -Pcalamaro-simplex myfile.ps
If you have any problems printing to the queue "calamaro" or
"calamaro-simplex" (eg some mozilla web pages will not work on those
queues), try the queue "calamaro-prerender". This sets an extra
printing option (postscript prerendering) which solves a lot of
problems with printing complicated web pages.
lpr -Pcalamaro-prerender myfile.ps
The CSCS lab also has a HP LaserJet 4500DN color printer (printer name
"colorlj") which should be used if page is not working or if you need to
print in color. The standard command to print to this printer would be:
lpr -Pcolorlj filename
Where filename is the name of the file you want to print. This printer
also prints duplex by default, use the printer name "colorlj-simplex" to
print simplex.
If you are printing a plain text file, often a better program to print with
(because it uses word wrap) is enscript. enscript will convert the
plaintext file to a postscript file, and then print it. The command line
usage of enscript is very similar to lpr. For example:
enscript filename
will convert the file "filename" to a postscript file, then print it to the
default printer in the lab (calamaro).
If you want to print using enscript in simplex mode, then you
would just type:
enscript -Pcalamaro-simplex filename
Some useful switches for enscript are:
-G Prints a pretty header at the top of each page
-r Rotates the output 90 degrees (Landscape mode)
-2 Prints in 2 column mode (2 pages on each side of a page)
For example,
enscript -2Gr filename
will print to the default printer (calamaro) with a nice header and 2
sheets per page in landscape mode.
Printing from Mozilla, Acroread, and other Linux programs
To print with mozilla and other linux programs, just go to file->print,
leave the printer command as "lpr". This will print to the default
queue (calamaro) double sided. If you want to print to calamaro with
prerendering (something you likely will want to do on complicated web
pages in mozilla), change "lpr" to "lpr -P calamaro-prerender". You can
also change other things like what paper size you want to use, whether you
want to print in color or not, etc on that same printer page.
Printing from Windows programs
To print in most programs just go to file->print, choose the "calamaro -
LaserJet 4200 Series (duplex)" if you want to print in duplex (two-sided)
mode, and choose "calamaro - LaserJet 4200 Series (simplex)" if you
want to print in simplex (one-sided) mode. If you want to print in color,
choose "colorlj - Color LaserJet (duplex)" or "colorlj - Color LaserJet
(simplex)" depending on if you want duplex or simplex.
