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From: Dan Ts'o <dan@dnn.rockefeller.edu>
Subject: Remote LPD Postscript printing quandary...
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Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 21:53:01 GMT
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:36975 comp.periphs.printers:61364
A problem that's been bugging me for years...
We have an HP Postscript printer with a network interface that
groks LPD. The way I understand it, under these conditions the local lpr/lpd
just ships the print job to the remote LPD host sans any filtering and the
local /etc/printcap entry is rather bare, only having rp= and rm= entries
(more or less...). In particular no local filtering is done.
What we want is for the lpr command to behave such that it will
accept either raw Postscript or plain ASCII text and behave correct *without
having to specify any options to lpr*. Why ? because many Unix programs like
elm, tin, Netscape, etc. all default to print by piping to lpr (no options).
So lpr should be smart enough to take both ASCII and Postscript jobs
straightup and do the right thing. This is pretty easy if the remote LPD
host is a Unix machine, but in this case, it is a network printer.
It all actually works except that HP PCL needs CRLF instead of just
LF to print ASCII text correctly. It seems that if Unix would just add CR's
before sending jobs to the remote printer, both ASCII text and Postscript
would be happy. Indeed in other configurations that works.
Any hints ? Thanks.
--
Cheers,
Dan Ts'o 212-327-7671
Dept. of Neurobiology FAX: 212-327-7671
The Rockefeller University
1230 York Ave. Box 138 dantso@cris.com
New York, NY 10021 dan@dna.rockefeller.edu