Printing command

The printers in the department can accept postscript input. If you are printing from chow, chow will automatically convert plain text input to postscript. The recommended printing command (for plain text and postscript only!) is

lpr filename

or

lpr -PLj8000 filename

where you can replace Lj8000 with another printer name if you wish. See below to set your default printer and for instructions on how to monitor and/or cancel your print job.

If you want to print another type of file, you must convert it to postscript ahead of time. For example, to convert and print a dvi file, type

dvips filename.dvi         or         dvips -PLj8000 filename.dvi

Note: to convert a dvi file to postscript file without printing, type

dvips -o filename.ps filename.dvi

Main Printers

There are two public printers in Krieger 209 and 409.  Here is some information about printer name, machine type and IP address.

ps207        HP LaserJet P3015DN (note: the printer name is ps207)      IP address: 128.220.31.153
Lj8000      HP  LaserJet 8000dn       IP address: 128.220.31.227  (system default printer)

Change your default printer (important to graduate students)

The default department printer is Lj8000. To change your default printer, set the environment variable PRINTER to the printer you want. All environment variables should be set in a file called .environment in your home directory. So to make ps207 your default printer, add the line

setenv PRINTER ps207

to the file .environment, creating that file if necessary. The reason to use this file, rather than .login, is that it is read by both your .login file when you log in, and by the window manager.

The environment variable LPDEST has equivalent functionality.

Note: for graduate students, the change of default printer is necessary since the Lj8000 printer, which is in Krieger 409, is not accessible. Your default printer should be either ps207, or the printer in your office.
 

Printing Options

When you print from Mozilla or some other program (Adobe Reader, Kghostview, xdvi, etc), you can choose printers, as well as printing options. In particular for kghostview, by click Print, then Properties, you can have options like if you want banner page (for Lj8000 and ps207), and if you want duplex printing.

Lj8000 is set to no duplex printing as default.

ps207 is set to do duplex printing as default.

If your office PC support duplex printing (HP Laserjet 2200DN, 2300DN, 2420DN) and you want that as default, please let me know.
 

Printing problems

If you submit a print job and nothing comes out of the printer, use the command

lpq -PLj8000

to see the printer status and what is in the print queue. (You may insert another printer name; if you omit the printer name, your default printer is used.) If lpq reveals that there is a problem with the printer, you should e-mail the person whose job is at the front of the queue and ask them to remove it (see below). And you should also e-mail jkong@math.jhu.edu to report the problem. In the meantime, you may want to print your job on another printer. Before doing so, be sure to remove your job from the queue of the disabled printer so that paper, toner and time aren't wasted.

Removing print jobs from the queue: if you type

lprm -

this will remove all print jobs in the queue which are owned by you. To specify a printer other than the default, type something like

lprm -PLj8000 -

You can also be more selective and only delete certain print jobs using

lprm -PLj8000 request-id

where request-id is the number displayed by the lpq -PLj8000 command.

Another command that works similarly is cancel.

Page last updated 9/15/2005.
Feedback: jkong@math.jhu.edu.
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