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Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 07:42:10 -0700
From: kelly@fsl.noaa.gov (Sean Kelly)
Message-Id: <9511241442.AA02862@emu.fsl.noaa.gov>
To: paul@netcraft.co.uk
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199511241302.NAA09867@ns0.netcraft.co.uk> (message from Paul Richards on Fri, 24 Nov 1995 13:02:25 +0000 (GMT))
Subject: Re: text to ps, thanks
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>>>>> "Paul" == Paul Richards <paul@ns0.netcraft.co.uk> writes:

    Paul> Thanks for all the replies, I knew about a2ps but unles I'm
    Paul> missing something it does too much pretty printing, I wanted
    Paul> something that makes a ps printer look exactly like a plain
    Paul> text printer.

Since you're using a serial printer in the first place, I recommend
James Clark's lprps package.  It consists of a highly robust
PostScript printer filter that works with LPD, does accurate
accounting, synchronous updates of printer status (using PostScript's
verbose error reporting), and emailing of any standard output from the
print job to the submitting user.  It includes an `if'-compatible
program that detects if the plain job is PostScript or not, and if
not, runs an included plain-text--to--PostScript converter.

If you set it up, you can type

	lpr whatever.ps        and        lpr plain-text

and get correct results.

    Paul> On a related note, our Apple laserwriter+ has a habit of not
    Paul> printing pages if they don't fill the printer buffer, they
    Paul> just sit in the printer, I get a timeout error and the job
    Paul> vanishes.

That's probably not a buffer filling problem: PostScript wants an
end-of-job character, which conveniently is the same as UNIX's:
CTRL+D.

    Paul> Is there a more "correct" way to flush jobs in postscript?

Send CTRL+D.  Or use lprps and LPD, which'll take care of it for you.

    Paul> Also, anyone feel like hacking lpr to read from the parallel
    Paul> port and report messages from the printer, I just use cat
    Paul> </dev/cua001 at the moment as a brute force method.

lprps will work, but you have to use a serial port.  To read from a
parallel port, we need to hack the lpt device driver, not lpr.

-- 
Sean Kelly
NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory, Boulder Colorado USA

If you're at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don't like the stuffing or
the cranberry sauce or anything else, just pretend like you're eating
it, but instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy
ball. Then, later, when you're out back having cigars with the boys,
let out a big fake cough and throw the ball to the ground. Then say,
"Boy, these are good cigars!"  -- Jack Handey