Printing Information
Queue Listing
A list of all the networked printers that exist in
the PA department. is available
here
. The list also contains locations, models, and the
group to which the printer belongs.
Printer Status
The status of any networked printer in the PA
department is accessible from
here.
Paper/Toner
Certain printers have their paper and toner maintained by
the departmental computing staff. These are
bps1225 (H-P LaserJet 4M in 1225 BPS),
bps3214a (H-P LaserJet 4100TN in 3214A BPS),
bps4258 (H-P LaserJet 4M in 4258 BPS),
hpljcapa (H-P LaserJet 8000DN in 1402 BPS),
bps1402 (H-P Color LaserJet 3800DN in 1402 BPS),
and
bps1300 (H-P LaserJet 4M in 1300 BPS).
If you notice the paper or toner on these
printers is getting low or is gone send an e-mail to
printer-problem@pa.msu.edu.
Problems
Two e-mail addresses have been set up for printer problems. These are
printer-problem@pa.msu.edu
and
printer-emergency@pa.msu.edu
.
Obviously if the problem is not severe (e.g. low on toner or paper),
send mail to printer-problem, and if it is severe (e.g. queue is stuck),
use printer-emergency. Please also make sure to
include the name of the printer, the problem, and
what you were doing when you noticed the problem.
Mail to these addresses is read and responded to
daily by the PA Helpdesk staff.
Printing Etiquette
When
sharing printers with a large number of people as
this department does, it is helpful to follow a
few rules of printer etiquette. These include:
- Use
a banner page. With printers that receive a lot of use (bps3265, bps4258), printed jobs
can pile up quickly and it can be frustrating to have many jobs lying
around with no indication of their ownership. Your output may be mixed in with
another person's output, making it even harder for you to find it when you want it.
- Collect
your jobs often. Pick up your jobs soon after you submit them, or they may be
discarded with the thought that they are unwanted.
- Keep
an eye on your jobs. Sometimes strangely formatted documents can confuse the print
queues. When this happens, the entire queue can stall and jobs can begin to
back up. If your job isn't printing right away, check the queue you sent it to
using the method below, and if necessary, contact the computing staff using the e-mail
addresses above. Don't resubmit the job more times with the hope that one
will find its way thru (and if you do happen to do this, go back and delete the
extra jobs before they print out).
- Keep
others in mind. If you are printing a 500 page paper, you might consider splitting
it up into several smaller jobs to to allow people with one-or-two page jobs a
chance to get their work printed. Another suggestion is to print large jobs during
off-peak periods (e.g. early in the morning).
- Keep
the paper flowing. If you notice a printer is out of paper due to your long
job, refill the paper tray. Extra paper is usually located either next to or
below the printer. If you notice there is no or very little paper left near a
certain printer, contact the computing staff (if it is one of the staff-maintained
printers above), or the person in charge of your department's printer and let them
know.
Using the Windows Network server
Note that printing via
AppleTalk/EtherTalk may or may not work (for network or other reasons beyond our control),
and we do not support it.
We do recommend and support the
LPD/LPR option of IP printing on
MacOS X.
Using
lp (recommended for Sun Solaris computers)
- Submitting
a job:
lp
-d
queuename
[-o
'option1 option2... optionn']
filename
- Checking
a queue:
lpstat
-p
queuename
-u
[username]
- Removing
a job:
cancel
job-id -u
[username]
Example:
lp -d hpljcapa -o 'duplex 2up' filename
Useful options available from kepler (Sun Solaris):
(used in place of option1, option2, etc above)
|
landscape
|
- |
print in landscape mode
|
|
duplex
|
- |
print on both sides
(only for double-sided printers)
|
|
hduplex
|
- |
print on both sides with "back" side reversed, (in case default duplex orientation is
not right for a particular file)
(only for double-sided printers)
|
|
2up
|
- |
print two pages on one side of a sheet
(text files only)
|
|
c
|
- |
use compressed text (16.7 characters/inch)
(text files only)
|
|
12
|
- |
use elite text (12 characters/inch)
(text files only)
|
|
10
|
- |
use pica text (10 characters/inch)
(text files only)
(this is the default on most of our printers)
|
|
nobanner
|
- |
suppress printing a banner page
(may be abbreviated to nb)
|
A
full listing of all options can be found by
typing 'man net_ljx000' from kepler.
Using lpr (recommended for other types of Unix computers)
- Submitting
a job:
lpr
[option-flags]
-P
queuename
filename
- Checking
a queue:
lpq
-P
queuename
[username]
- Removing
a job:
lprm -Pqueuename
job-id [username]
Example:
lpr -Pbps4258 filename
Notes on lpr option-flags:
Most Unix systems will pass the option-flag -h (no banner page) to the queue properly.
Digital Unix will also properly pass the option-flag -Olandscape (landscape mode) to the queue.
Most other lpr flags are ignored.
Special commands & queues
Some special cases for printing have been made available with scripts on kepler
(and cloned on many other Unix systems in the P-A Dept).
Printing PostScript files to the upper (transparency) tray of the
Tektronix Phaser 8550DX Color Laser Printer in room 3214A:
lp-hep-tek-uppertray filename.ps
Printing text files in "2-up" mode
on any supported PostScript printer:
lpr2up -Pqueuename filename.txt
Printing files in special modes on the
hpljcapa HP LJ8000DN laser printer or the
bps1402 HP LJ 3800DN color laser printer
in room 1402 may use special
queuenames (substitute hpljcapa
or bps1402 for xxxxxx
in the queuename below):
lpr -Pxxxxxx_2 filename.txt
lp -d xxxxxx_2 filename.txt
|
(duplex portrait mode letter-size documents - 8.5" x 11")
|
lpr -Pxxxxxx_2h filename.txt
lp -d xxxxxx_2h filename.txt
|
(duplex landscape mode letter-size documents - 8.5" x 11")
|
lpr -Pxxxxxx_lgl filename.txt
lp -d xxxxxx_lgl filename.txt
|
(legal-size documents - 8.5" x 14")
|
lpr -Pxxxxxx_lgl_2 filename.txt
lp -d xxxxxx_lgl_2 filename.txt
|
(duplex portrait mode legal-size documents - 8.5" x 14")
|
lpr -Pxxxxxx_lgl2h filename.txt
lp -d xxxxxx_lgl2h filename.txt
|
(duplex landscape mode legal-size documents - 8.5" x 14")
|
|
In addition to the queues for letter and legal size paper available on both hpljcapa and
bps1402, there are queues on hpljcapa for ledger
size (11 inches by 17 inches) paper.
|
lpr -Phpljcapa_ldg filename.txt
lp -d hpljcapa_ldg filename.txt
|
(ledger-size documents - 11" x 17")
|
lpr -Phpljcapa_ldg_2 filename.txt
lp -d hpljcapa_ldg_2 filename.txt
|
(duplex portrait mode ledger-size documents - 11" x 17")
|
lpr -Phpljcapa_ldg2h filename.txt
lp -d hpljcapa_ldg2h filename.txt
|
(duplex landscape mode ledger-size documents - 11" x 17")
|
These special queuenames are especially useful for printing from remote non-Solaris systems (i.e., those for which 'lp' does not pass the '-o duplex' option-flag to the queue properly), but they work from Solaris systems such as kepler, too.
Printing files to transparencies with the hpljcapa HP LJ8000DN printer in room 1402:
lp-hpljcapa-transparency file.name
Insert HP LaserJet-compatible transparency film - available at the Physics Store - into the manual feed tray on the righthand side of hpljcapa; it will reappear at the lefthand side output bin, avoiding curling the film.
(This command is the equivalent of:
lp -d hpljcapa -o 'nb simplex tray1 leftbin manual mtypeTransparency' filename.txt)
Printing files to transparencies with the bpsclj HP LJ8550DN color printer in room 1402:
lp-bpsclj-transparency file.name
Issue the command first. When the printer gets to your job, it will wait until it sees the correct media
in the manual input tray before continuing (there should be a message on the control panel about the printer's
wanting transparency film in Tray 1).
If you put the transparency film into the manual input tray before your
print job comes up, then any job in the queue ahead of it which does not explicitly specify a media type (and
most do not) will use your transparency film, as the manual tray is dominant over the internal paper supply when
both are stocked.
Insert HP COLOR LaserJet-compatible (not merely LaserJet-compatible)
transparency film
into the manual feed tray on the righthand side of hpclj250; it will reappear at the lefthand side
output bin. This print path minimizes the curling of the film by the high temperatures of the print engine
(approximately 190°C), but there may still be some amount of it, most of which should relax towards
flatness within a few days.
(This command is the equivalent of:
lp -d bpsclj -o 'nb simplex tray1 leftbin manual mtypeTransparency' filename.txt)
Suitable models of HP COLOR LaserJet-compatible transparency film are or
will be available at the Physics Store:
3M CG3700
(acceptable), 3M CG3720 (recommended)
or Hewlett-Packard C2934A (recommended).
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