4.5 Your Printers

A general scheme is used, so that whatever the way you should address the printers on your system, the interface is still the same. Actually, the interface is so flexible, that you should understand ‘named destination’ when we write ‘printer’.

Configuration Setting: Printer: name PPD-key destination ¶

Configuration Setting: Printer: name destination ¶

Configuration Setting: Printer: name PPD-key ¶

Specify the destination of the output when the option ‘-P name’ is given. If PPD-key is given, declare the printer name to be described by the PPD file PPD-key.ppd. If destination is not given, used that of the ‘UnknownPrinter:’.

The destination must be of one of the following forms:

‘| command’

in which case the output is piped into command.

‘> file’

in which case the output is saved into file.

Configuration Setting: UnknownPrinter: [PPD-key] destination ¶

Specify the destination of the output when when the option ‘-P name’ is given, but there is no ‘Printer:’ entry for name.

Configuration Setting: DefaultPrinter: [PPD-key] destination ¶

Specify the destination of the output when when the option ‘-d’ (send to default output) is given.

Escapes expansion is performed on destination (see Escapes). Recall that ‘#o’ is evaluated to the destination name, i.e., the argument given to ‘-P’.

For instance

# My Default Printer is called dominique
DefaultPrinter: | lp -d dominique

# `a2ps foo.c -P bar' will pipe into `lp -d bar'
UnknownPrinter: | lp -d #o

# `a2ps -P foo' saves into the file `foo'
Printer: foo > foo.ps
Printer: wc | wc
Printer: lw | lp -d printer-with-a-rather-big-name

# E.g. `a2ps foo.c bar.h -P file' will save into `foo.c.ps'
Printer: file > $n.#.

# E.g. `a2ps foo.c bar.h -P home' will save into `foo.ps'
# in user's home
Printer: home > ${HOME}/$N.#.