HowTo print

Location and list of Printers

Apple Os X

Os X users connected to the network by wire can browse the list of printers available automatically. The options for printing can be selected in the different section of the print dialog box. click on pages & copies to see all the sections at your disposal.

Users of laptops connected to the wireless network please refer to instructions to install the printers.

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Windows

In Windows XP and above, most programs will let you print from the File menu. Go to Start→Control Panel→Printers & Faxes to see the printers available. Machines managed by staff will have all network printers automatically added to this list. Users that have Windows laptops connected to the network by wire should go to Start→Run and enter “\\melpomene.epfl.ch” (without quotes), right click on the printer they want to use, and select connect. This will add that printer to the Printers & Faxes List.

To set the default printer in Windows, right click on the printer in the Printers & Faxes list, and select “Select as Default Printer.”
Users of laptops connected to the wireless network please refer to instructions to install the printers.

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Linux Workstations

To use one or more of the printers, users of linux workstations of the labs needs only to select it from the printer dialog box of the graphical applications they're using. The subsystem that manage the print of documents understands a variety of formats including text, PostScript, and PDF. It's possible to print directly from command line using the lpr or lp commands. Here you will find a short memo about the most useful parameters for these commands. Go there if you want see a list of the advanced options.

Users of laptops connected to the wired network have to start the cups daemon and open the port 631/tcp and 631/udp on their personal firewall, in order to see the shared printers.
Users of laptops connected to the wireless network please refer to instructions to install the printers.

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Unix command line (Linux/Mac)

A brief but useful documentation can be found here.

Usefull commands are:

lp: for printing
lpstat: for checking the print queues
lpoptions: for settings (default) printer options and checking what are the available options on printers

Some usage examples

Reduce Waster of Paper

If possible always print double sided and eventually even fit more than a single document page on each paper side. The following command prints two document pages on each of the two sides of the paper:

  lp -o sides=two-sided-long-edge -o number-up=2 file.pdf

You can even print only given pages of a document:

 lp -o sides=two-sided-long-edge -o number-up=2 -o page-ranges=1-4,54,70-120 document_file.ps

Media Selection

Check the options on a given printer (lpoptions -p PRINTER_NAME -l)

# lpoptions -p cloud -l 

PageSize/Media Size: Card3x5 Hagaki Photo4x6 A6 Photo5x7 Card5x8 Oufuku A5 B5 JB5 Executive 16k Letter *A4 ExecutiveJIS FLSA Legal EnvA2 EnvC6 EnvChou4 EnvMonarch EnvDL Env10 EnvChou3 EnvC5 EnvB5 Custom.WIDTHxHEIGHT
Duplex/Double-Sided Printing: *DuplexNoTumble DuplexTumble None
InputSlot/Media Source: *Auto PhotoTray Upper Lower Envelope LargeCapacity Manual MPTray
ColorModel/Output Mode: *Gray
MediaType/Media Type: *Plain
OutputMode/Print Quality: *Normal Draft Best
OptionDuplex/Duplexer Installed: False *True

# lpoptions -p algo_nat -l 
OptionTrays/Number of Input Trays: 1Trays *2Trays
PageSize/Media Size: Letter Legal Executive *A4 A4Long A5 A6 Env10 EnvMonarch EnvDL EnvDLRotated EnvC5 EnvISOB5 EnvISOB6 B5 FanFoldGermanLegal 2.75x3 Bible Statement OrgM 3x5 Postcard Custom.WIDTHxHEIGHT
BRMediaType/Media Type: *Plain Recycled Thin Thick ThickPaper2 BOND Env EnvThick EnvThin Label PostCard
InputSlot/Media Source: *AutoSelect Tray1 Tray2 MPTray
ManualFeed/ManualFeed: True *False
Duplex/Duplex: DuplexTumble *DuplexNoTumble None
BRJobHold/Job Spooling: *None Private
BRJobPIN/Password: *HoldKey0 HoldKey1 HoldKey2 HoldKey3 HoldKey4 HoldKey5 HoldKey6 HoldKey7 HoldKey8 HoldKey9
BRUser/User Name: *UserSystem
BRJobName/Job Name: *JobNameSystem JobName1 JobName2 JobName3 JobName4 JobName5 JobName6 JobName7 JobName8 JobName9
CAPT/Print Quality: *Fine SuperFine
TonerSaveMode/Toner Save: *Off On
BRPrintQuality/Color/Mono: *Auto Color Black
BRGammaValue/Gamma Correction: G18 *G22 Off
BRColorMode/Color Mode: True *False
BRImprovedGray/Improve Gray Color: True *False
UCRGCRForImage/Enhance Black Printing: True *False
ScreenLock/Halftone Screen Lock: *True False
BRReducedImage/High Quality Image Printing: True *False
BRLanguageLevel/BR-Script Level: L1 L2 *L3

Now that we know that printer algo_nat has a multi-porpouse manual feeder (InputSlot/Media Source: *AutoSelect Tray1 Tray2 MPTray) and after figuring out that that feeder is called MPTray, we can print our single sided label sheet on a4 lalbel paper that we will manually feed to the printer:

lp -d algo_nat -o sides=one-sided -o media=a4,MPTray file.pdf

Note that the -o media=… is used for selecting any combination of Media Size, Media Source, and/or Media Type. Multiple parameters can be given separated by comma. Examples:

lp ... -o media=a4 ...
lp ... -o media=letter,Tray2 ...
lp ... -o media=a4,Manual,Transparency ...

where a4 and letter are Media Sizes, Tray2 and Manual are Media Sources, and Transparency is a Media Type.

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