Revised: January 2007.
The command to send files to the printer is "lpr". If you have a Unix file named "myfile" type "lpr myfile"
Since you'll want to send your files to a printer close to you. The way to to do this is to specify the name of a particular printer i.e adding a "-P" with the printer's name. (Printer names are posted on or near the printer in question.)
For example: if you want to print to Laser35, in the Center Hall 315 Mac lab, you need to specify this to the system. *So the command to type would be "lpr -Plaser35 myfile" in order to send "myfile" to Laser35.
*If you are using the GNOME environment on a linux machine, you can just insert this command line into the "print command" field under the properties menu when you go to File->Print.
If you know that you'll be doing a lot of printing during one login session, you can shorten what you need to type each time to print. You can change this default to anything you want by typing this command at the prompt:
% setenv PRINTER printername
When you type this, change "printername" to the name of the printer in question.
After that, whenever you type "lpr myfile" during *this login session*, all printouts will be sent to the printer you specified.
If your print job does not appear at the printer in a reasonable amount of time, DO NOT send it repeatedly. For guidance see the accompanying selection "What to do if your job does not appear."
If your print job does not appear on the printer in a reasonable amount of
time, DO NOT send it repeatendly. Chances are, if your job didn't print
the first time, it won't print again. Sending the job again will only
produce the same result and may in fact aggrevate the problem. Instead,
follow these steps first:
1. Wait a minute.
It may take up to a minute or so for the pages to start coming out.
If your header page has already come out, your document is on the way.
2. Check the status indicators.
If one of the lights is flashing or flickering, the laser printer is
processing a job. Be patient.
If a red light appears, the laser printer is jammed. Call Operations
(ext: 44097) or summon a Zebra.
AT&T line printers may indicate errors on their LCD readouts. If the
readout displays anything other than "ON LINE," call Operations.
Other line printers may indicate an error with a large red light. If
the light is on, report the problem to Operations.
3. Check the printer queue.
See the accompanying selection "Checking printer queues" for information
on how to do this. If the queue seems excessively long, call Operations
to verify that the queue is stuck.
If the queue is stuck and you have to leave, remove your jobs from the
queue. See the selection "Removing jobs from printer queues."
4. Make sure the appropriate destination was specified.
Did you remember to specify the correct printer, either with the PRINTER
environment variable or with the -P option to lpr? If not, you'll need
to correct your error and resend the job.
5. Check status of your real-money account.
Laser printers require an active real-money account with ACMS.
To check this balance on a Mac, click on the Apple icon in the
upper right-hand corner, and go to the item that says "Check Laser
Balance". You'll be asked for the name of the account to which your
printing account is connected.
On a PC, open the folder called "ACMS Account Utilities" and then
double-click on the icon that says "Check Laser Balance".
Also, the Unix command "rbalance" will show you the balance of your
real-money account.
** Printing to laser printers is disabled at the end of each day if
the balance falls below $0.00. If you want to continue printing,
you'll need to come by the ACMS Accounts Office again to deposit
more money into the account. You can also add money online at
http://sdacs.ucsd.edu/~icc/laser.php.
If several jobs are sent to a printer, the first one received starts
to print immediately and the remaining are placed in a queue. To see
the current list of jobs that are waiting to print on any given printer
(apm2337, in this example), use the following command:
% lpq -Papm2337
If you do not use the "-P" option, and you have set the PRINTER
environment variable, then lpq will show you the queue for that
printer.
To cancel the printing of a specific job that you have sent to a printer,
you first need to check the queue of that printer and get the job
number. Once you have that, use the lprm command to remove the
job.
[The following example has running comments in square brackets]
% setenv PRINTER laser1 [only necessary once per session]
% lpr jedimindtricks.txt [print the file]
% lpq [show the queue]
[find your name in the "Owner" column (it's okenobi in this example) ]
laser1 is ready and printing
Rank Owner Job Files Total Size
1st hsolo 432 blueprint.html 13344 bytes
2nd okenobi 599 jedimindtricks.txt 6152 bytes
[remove the job using the number in the "Job" column]
% lprm 599
If you do not have the PRINTER environment variable set properly,
remember to use the -P option with the lpr, lpq, and lprm commands.
To remove all of your jobs on a specific printer queue, use a '-'
as the "job number."
% lprm - [if PRINTER is set appropriately]
% lprm -Plaser1 - [to specify a specific printer]
OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
For further information about basic printing commands see:
man lpr
man lpq
man lprm
man lp