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From: Nathan Dorfman <nathan@senate.org>
Message-Id: <199707081933.PAA11491@limbo.senate.org>
Subject: Re: Q: Printer support ?
In-Reply-To: <33C28565.2638@ucs.att.com> from "snashik@ucs.att.com" at "Jul 8, 97 02:22:29 pm"
To: snashik@ucs.att.com
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 1997 15:33:11 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
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If all you really need to do is print ASCII text you can use any printer
and do things like:

	cat file.txt | lpr (or just lpr file.txt)
	lp file.txt
	cat file.txt > /dev/lpt0

However you need to do some extra configuration if you are going to print
things like PostScript. A good idea would be to install a program such
as apsfilter:

	ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/printing/aps-491.tgz

This will automatically create a printer configuration in /etc/printcap
for your printer, based on which you select from its own list. For example
if you have an Epson LQ printer (or a BubbleJet 4x00, which you should set
to Epson LQ mode and use the Epson LQ entry with), you'd select the epsonc
entry. From then on it will use ghostscript to print any incoming files (it
must be installed). ASCII files will be beautified with a2ps so they look
good, and you can set options in /etc/apsfilterrc that tell it how to print
these pages, i.e. you can have it print a page on each page with:

FEATURE=1n

You can also have it add a nice header to the top of each page saying who
printed it when and where with FEATURE=1 (no n). You can also have it print
landscape, or two pages per sheet (done with landscape and splitting it in
half). I strongly recommend checking this program out.

> What printers does freeBSD support ? Where can I find such a list?
> 
> Thanks,
> Sat Nashikkar
>