Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 05:50:43 -0700 From: "Philip J. Koenig" <pjklist@ekahuna.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Better printing from the command-line Message-ID: <3B2C4533.11707.8C0F84@localhost> In-Reply-To: <15148.3363.52861.253822@guru.mired.org> References: <6147922@toto.iv>
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On 16 Jun 2001, at 20:51, Mike Meyer boldly uttered: > Philip J. Koenig <pjklist@ekahuna.com> types: > > However I'd like to do some *rudimentary* jazzing up of the > > printouts, ie something as simple as setting the font to 12-pitch > > instead of 10-pitch so that certain manpages and text documents > > don't end up with truncated lines. > > From the sound of things, you're talking about printing flat ascii > text. Since these kinds of things aren't standardized, there really > isn't a generic tool for dealing with them. I've been thinking about > extending magicfilter to add the ability to specify strings to prefix > a print job, which might solve this, but haven't done anything yet. > Personally, I just set those the way I want them on the printer, and > forget about them. You are correct about what I'm printing, just things like manpages and configuration files and logs, etc. I can't really set the printer a certain way because it depends on the job, and because I have over half a dozen machines here that print to that printer from various OS's. > > Even though I'm using the "magicfilter" port which has a specific > > filter for the HP Laserjet, it doesn't appear to have any settings > > which can do something as simple as change the font pitch. I hear > > good things about the "APSfilter" port but that appears to require X, > > which I don't usually run. > > apsfilter doesn't require X, but it defaults to using it if you build > it interactively. Build it with "make -DWITHOUT_X11" and it won't > require X. Hopefully, this will be changed in the future to default to > build without X if X isn't installed. Ah, good info, thanks, I may try that. > In any case, apsfilter doesn't send flat ascii text files to the > printer, so things like the printers font pitch setting don't > matter. It sends ascii text through a2ps, then prints the resulting > postscript. This can be an expensive operation if your printer prints > flat text and doesn't print postscript, and can even cause printouts > to fail on some printers. That's one of the reasons I recommend > magicfilter over apsfilter - magicfilter won't filter flat text > through postscript unless the printer can't handle flat text. > > You can install the a2ps port yourself and do what apsfilter does by > hand if you're happy printing flat text through postscript. I prefer > enscript for this; it's also in the ports tree. Either one of them > have more options than you want to worry about for how to format the > text on the page. The printer supports Postscript 2, and I can see using that if I were using a GUI, but it seems awful complex just to print a few plain ASCII files from the command line. (Things like proportional fonts would actually be unwanted for what I'm doing) > > Is there any other kind of utility with a few basic built-in switches > > to do minor formatting on a Laserjet 4MPlus? This printer supports > > Postscript too but it would seem simpler to just use PCL commands. I > > hope I don't end up having to write my own scripts just to send > > commands to the printer.. > > Ok, the only printer system that might do what you're thinking about > is CUPS. There's a demo of that in the ports tree. It uses the printer > description files that Windows uses, which tells the print system how > to do all these things. You may have to purchase the commercial > version to do what you want, though. Thanks. I'm going to read Ted's writeup on printing and see what I can glean from that first. I think what I need really is just to have a simple way to send some PCL commands to the printer before/after print jobs. I would prefer something with a rudimentary menu for common things (ie set pitch, set lines per inch, margins) but I suppose I can make do with something more manual. (This is all like Deja-Vu from the bad 'ol days printing from DOS programs to laser printers, but even worse because even in those days there were printer control programs and most popular applications understood the various printer options so you didn't usually have to muck around with PCL commands.) Thanks again, Phil -- Philip J. Koenig pjklist@ekahuna.com Electric Kahuna Systems -- Computers & Communications for the New Millenium To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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