Newbie lpd printing

[Malcolm Kay]

On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 14:10, Gary Schenk wrote:
> 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.
>
> > Can you print postscript from the command line? If not, the KDE is
> > probably turning everything into postscript, which is then failing.
>
> I can only print text from the command line, everything else is broken.
>
> > If you're only going to print from KDE, then fixing this script might
> > be the way to go. However, installing something like magicfilter - and
> > you've already got the hard parts done - which handles the difference
> > between postscript and flat text properly, and automatically converts
> > a number of formats to postscript for you, might be a better option if
> > you want to print regularly from the command line.
> >
> > 	<mike
>
> 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?
>
> 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?
>
> 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.
>

Until now I thought you had solved your printer problem. Some more
information would probably help:
 Which Epson printer do you have -- is it an inkjet? -- which particular 
model.
 Do you have ghostscript installed? Aladdin or Gnu?

With this information we can possibly fix the filter script for you.

A relatively simple filter switching between plain text and postscript
should be fairly simple to implement if your printer is supported by 
ghostscript.

More complex filters are sometimes employed to directly manage output
in other formats -- particularly picture formats -- or to select printer 
options such as resolution, speed vs quality but I find this overkill.

malcolm