Printing

The Linux systems in the CS Labs and in Rosenberg 009 are set up for printing to several different printers. It is not possible to print to other printers. The available printers are:

When you print using most applications, you can select one of these printers from a list in the print dialog box. Please make sure that you are printing to the appropriate printer for the location where you are working!

For printing text files, including Java programs, I recommend using the command line program a2ps. (The name of this program stands for "Ascii to PostScript.") Give the name of the file or files that you want to print as parameters to this command. For example to print files named MyProg.java and MyClass.java:

              a2ps  MyProg.java  MyClass.java

This will print to the default printer, which should be the one that is appropriate for the location where you are working. (To check what printer is selected as the default, give the command lpq. The output from this command will include the name of the default printer.) If you want to print to a different printer, use the -P option with the name of the printer. For example, to print the same two files to the printer in Rosenberg 009, use:

             a2ps  -P  rosenberg9  MyProg.java  MyClass.java

The a2ps command has many options. The command a2pslong has been defined as a version of a2ps with options appropriate for printing most Java files. You can substitute it for a2ps in the above commands.

The command lpr can be used in place of a2ps. It also uses the -P option to specify the printer. The lpr command will give you plain text, rather than a nicely formatted output. You can do landscape printing (sideways) by adding the option -o landscape to the lpr command. You can also use lpr for printing non-text files, such as image files.