Newbie lpd printing

[Mike Meyer]

In <200304222140.12401.gwschenk at socal.rr.com>, Gary Schenk <gwschenk at socal.rr.com> typed:
> On Friday 11 April 2003 09:21 am, Mike Meyer wrote:
> > I suspect your script is broken for printing postscript files. The
> > hpif script in the handbook doesn't handle those at all, so I assume
> > you added that code.
> No, I did not add anything. This is the script from the handbook. I thought 
> that it was to print postscript to a non-postscript printer. It is 
> essentisally the same script as in FreeBSD Unleashed.

Where did you find that script? It's pretty badly flawed, and if it's
in the handbook, that should be fixed.

> The more I read about printing the more confused I get. I'd like to print 
> form a word processor, but don't seem to be able to in FreeBSD. I tried 
> installing apsfilter, but it is broken. I have no clue as to how to fix 
> it. Perhaps installing Star Office would help, and use its printer 
> interface? Or is the best solution to buy a postscript printer?

Buying a postscript printer is certainly a good idea - it takes the
load of processing postscript off your CPU, and puts it on the
printer. That should save comm bits as well, as lots of things on Unix
generate postscript by default, so you don't wind up shipping bitmaps
to the printer. Something like magicfilter or apsfilter is still
useful, as they work by turning various other formats - images, text
formats, etc - into postscript, then rendering that on your box or on
the printer.

> As for magicfilter, I'm still working on it. I ran make install in 
> /usr/ports/print/magicfilter. However locate magicfilter shows nothing, 
> except for the above directory. There is nothing in the /usr/local/bin 
> directory indicating anything was installed. A google search sent me to 
> http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/peripherals/printer-magicfilter.html , 
> which is for Debian Linux. It talks about running magicfilterconfig. I 
> assume there is nothing like this in FreeBSD?

I don't know what's in the Debian docs are talking about. In
particular, there's a rewrite of magicfilter from the ground up that
bills itself as magicfilter 2.0 that they may be talking about. That's
irrelevant to the magicfilter port.  The magicfilter should install
/usr/bin/magicfilter. It also installs printer filter scripts in
/usr/local/libexec/magicfilter/.

> Should I be content  to print only text? I talked to a friend who has been 
> running OpenBSD for three years. he only prints text. Is this common with 
> BSD? I do need to print more than plain text.

No, it's not common with BSD - or Unix - systems. Most programs on
Unix - like, for example, wp programs - generate Postscript
output. If you have a postscript printer, you can probably just output
directly to the printer. Magicfilter provides a "postscript" filter
that appends a control-Z to the output to signal the end of the job,
which some printers/printer configurations require. If you don't have
a postscript printer, you need to arrange for the postscript to be
sent to ghostscript, then the output of that to be sent to the
printer. Magicfilter and apsfilter both can do that for you.

I've got one postscript printer and one deskjet, and use magicfilter
for both. I can print from Mozilla, my word processor, the gimp, and
similar tools directly to either printer, and it work just
works. Those tools all generate postscript. I can also print various
document types from the command line - including images - and those
will print properly as well.

	<mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.