Subject:  Printing to HP Printers from ITS UNIX Account
From:     Pamela Fong
Date:     Tue Jul 13 21:58:21 PDT 2004


Here are notes for the procedure I used to configure my
ITS UNIX account for printing to Hewlett-Packard TCP/IP capable
printers, are not already defined on the ITS UNIX Cluster.

Note:  The only Lester Lab printer which is defined on the
       cluster is gastrocnemius, so you can use this method
       to configure printing our other lab printers.


1)  In your ITS home directory, use a text editor such as pico or
    vim to create the file named,
 
      .printers
 
    containing the lines,

      sartorius|_default sartorius.caltech.edu:text1:Solaris 
      quadriceps quadriceps.caltech.edu:text1:Solaris 
      triceps triceps.caltech.edu:text1:Solaris 
      deltoid deltoid.caltech.edu:text1:Solaris 
 
    Notes:
      This will identify the name, "sartorius" with the printer
      at the IP address associated with the DNS hostname,
      sartorius.caltech.edu, and it will set this printer to be
      the default.  Whether the printer is actually set as *your*
      default however may depend on other parameters which might
      be defined in *your* logon initialization scripts.
 
2)  Test the configuration, by running commands such as
 
      lpq -Psartorius
      lpr -Psartorius testtextfile.txt
      lpstat -p triceps
      a2ps --printer=sartorius test.pdf

    If you want to be fancy, try this really long command, a 
    contiguous line of text, which I've split into pieces for
    you to read here: 

      a2ps --printer=sartorius --columns=1 --rows=1 --major=rows
       --portrait --line-numbers=1 --font-size=7
       --left-title="My Thoughts on Great Matters" --margin=36
       --pretty-print=plain test.txt


Then, for example, you can configure pine to print your messages
to sartorius as follows,

  a)  Run pine.

  b)  Press S to get into SETUP.
  c)  Press P to get into Printer.

  d)  Scroll down with the down arrow key to get to,
      "Personally selected print command".
  e)  Press A to Add Printer
  f)  Enter printer name:  sartorius
  g)  Enter command for printer:  lpr -Psartorius
  h)  Press Enter to save

  i)  Press E to exit
 
  Open a message with pine, and use the % to print, selecting
  to print to sartorius.

---Pam

References:

  man printers
  man a2ps
  man lpstat
  http://www.hp.com