jda@coach.shell.com (Joel D. Anderson) (06/01/91)
From a Sun workstation I'm trying to print ascii files to a PostScript
printer attached to a DOS PC. The PC is running PC/TCP LPD (v1.0) from
FTP Software.
Things work great if on the Sun I print a postscript file with
'lpr -h postscript.file', but if I try to print a plain ascii file (or
exclude the -h lpr option), the file never prints. The printer does not
handle non-postscript-encapsulated files and subsequently flushes its buffer.
As the PC's LPD doesn't have the capacity to filter the input job to
postscript, I believe the problem resides within the UNIX /etc/printcap
file. I've tried and tried different variations with no success.
What's the trick?
Following is my Sun's /etc/printcap before I gave up:
pcps:lp=:rm=pc1:rp=postscr:sd=/usr/spool/pcps:lf=/usr/spool/pcps/pcps-pcps:\
mx#0:if=/usr/tran/lib/psif:of=/usr/tran/lib/psof
--
Joel D. Anderson
Shell Oil Company, Information Center Houston, TX (713) 795-3541
jda@shell.com ...!{rice,bcm}!shell!jdaian@unipalm.uucp (Ian Phillipps) (06/03/91)
jda@coach.shell.com (Joel D. Anderson) writes: >From a Sun workstation I'm trying to print ascii files to a PostScript >printer attached to a DOS PC. The PC is running PC/TCP LPD (v1.0) from >FTP Software. >Things work great if on the Sun I print a postscript file with >'lpr -h postscript.file', but if I try to print a plain ascii file (or >exclude the -h lpr option), the file never prints. The printer does not >handle non-postscript-encapsulated files and subsequently flushes its buffer. I don't know Transcript (which is presumably what those filters are) well enough to know why the encapsulation of plain text files isn't working. However, to get printing without the -h, include a ctrl/D as the last character of the header. The header then gets thrown away (or printed, if it was real PS). PS - you have to put a REAL Ctrl/D in your config file, not an octal escape, whatever the FTP manual may imply. Ian