Ubuntu Manpage: apsfilter — magic print filter with auto file type recognition

NAME

     apsfilter — magic print filter with auto file type recognition

SYNOPSIS

     lpr [-Pprinter] [-C option1:...:optionN] [file ...] (lpd style)
     lpr [-Pprinter] [-Z option1:...:optionN] [file ...] (LPRng style)
     lp [-d printer] [-o option1:...:optionN] [file ...] (Solaris style)

DESCRIPTION

Apsfilter is a magic print filter which allows you to print different document types “automagically”
without having to convert them manually into a document format which is understood by your printer
hardware.

Apsfilter uses third-party software to convert every supported file type into PostScript (PS) first. If you
have a real PS printer, the data stream is then sent directly to the PS printer, otherwise it is piped
through the famous PS interpreter gs(1) which supports a wide range of output devices.

Thus the question whether a particular printer is supported by apsfilter is actually the question of it
either understanding PS directly, or being supported by gs(1) in some way (possibly using some emulation of
another printer's software interface, like Epson's ESC/P2 or HP's PCL).

Another important thing to remember is that the required driver support has to be present in the installed
gs(1) binary. gs -h lists (among others) which drivers are currently compiled in. SETUP warns when a
selected driver is missing and guides in choosing another driver.

The FreeBSD ports collection offers an easy and comfortable framework for FreeBSD users to configure and
install apsfilter, gs(1), gs third-party driver and filter programs for their personal needs.

The apsfilter script is designed to avoid temporary files as much as possible. So it is very efficient in
use and doesn't fill up filesystems even when printing large printjobs in high resolution and best print
quality.

Apsfilter offers a wide range of customization options through config files and lpr(1) command line
options, see below.

Advantages over other magic filters
Apsfilter and its SETUP is completely written in a script language (see sh(1) ). So it is easy to
understand and modify even for users and admins who are quite new to the Unix business.

Apsfilter is highly customizable and its developement since 1994 has shown that it scales very well with
the still growing demand of additional features.

Supported printers
Apsfilter supports locally connected serial, parallel and USB printers.

Remote printing cababilities: Unix remote printing (lpd protocol), printing to an AppleTalk remote printer
via pap(1) as well as Windows remote printing via SAMBAs smbclient(1) on Windows 95/98/NT/2000 printer as
guest user or using a real password protected Windows account.

Apsfilter 's SETUP utility supports in installing all supported printer types, no matter if local or remote
printer, into the printer capability database /etc/printcap.

Supported file types
ar, arc, arj, ASCII, BMP, CAB, cpio, DATA, DVI, FBM, FIG, FITS, GIF, Group 3 FAX, HTML, IFF ILBM, JPEG,
Kodak Photo CD (PCD), LHA, MGR, MIFF, PAM, PGM, PBM, PNM, PPM, PDF, PNG, Postscript (PS), RAR, RLE, RPM,
SGI, Sketch, Sunraster, TAR, Targa (TGA), TIFF ROFF, WMF, WorPerfect graphics, XCF, X Pixmap (XPM), X
Window dump (XWD), ZIP, ZOO. Note that actual support depends on the installed filter programs.

Installation
Extract the tarball and execute ./configure in the apsfilter directory (maybe with some options; use
./configure --help to see a listing).

After that, login as root and call make install; then you can set up printers with
/usr/share/apsfilter/SETUP.

SETUP adds the printer to the /etc/printcap database to make it available to the lpd(8) print spooler, and
configures apsfilter for operation with that printer.

After successfull installation, SETUP remembers its previous configuration settings in a file called
SETUP.cfg.

Command line options
Several command line options to apsfilter are available which allow the user to influence the printing
quality, color mode, paper size etc. The handbook includes a detailed listing.

draft Draft quality.

lo|low Low quality.

med|medium Medium quality.

hi|high High quality.

photo Photo quality.

uni|bi Uni-/bi-directional sweeps.

plain Plain paper.

coated Coated (inkjet) paper.

glossy Glossy paper.

premium Premium (photo) paper.

trans Transparencies.

color|colour Color printing.

gray|grey Gray printing.

mono B/W printing.

auto Automatic filetype recognition and data conversion.

ascii Force printing as ASCII document. For example to print Postscript source code
without actually interpreting it.

raw Pass-through mode, your print data won't be changed by any filter.

a3|a4|legal|ledger|tabloid
Paper size.

a2ps|mpage|enscript|recode
Text file filter to use, when printing ASCII documents.

tray0...tray9 Paper feed tray number.

pretty=N highlight level for pretty-printing (N=0,1,2)

header|noheader Whether you want headers in your text prints.

border|noborder Whether you want borders in your text prints.

1pps|2pps|4pps|8pps Pages per sheet.

landscape|portrait Paper orientation.

book Output pages in "book" format, implies "2pps,duplex,shortbind"

duplex|simplex Whether to use duplex mode or not.

shortbind|longbind Paper binding edge.

copies=N Number of copies.

EXAMPLES

           lpr -C high:color:glossy file.gif tex.dvi.gz file.html ...

     prints some files of different types no matter whether compressed or not on the Unix default printer (see
     lpr(1) ).

     The -C option to the lpr command sets additional ghostscript driver-specific options.  Here, ‘high’ means
     high resolution (e. g. 600 dpi for an HP Printer using gs's “cdj850” printer driver), color output (e.g. 32
     bits per pixel), and the paper type is set to glossy paper

           lpr -C duplex somefile

     enables pseudo duplex printing by halting the print queue after printing a documents even pages and so
     giving the user a chance to flip paper and restart printing after executing a special user command on the
     command line.

     User gets a notification mail containing a session oriented magic wakeup command and key which restarts
     printing of the odd pages of the print job.

     The so called magic command makes sure that only the initiator of the print job is able to restart printing
     after reinserting the paper.

     Beware, if you have nasty users, this can cause print jobs to hang, filling up the print queue and at least
     the /var file system.

FILES

     /etc/printcap                           printer capability data base
     /usr/share/apsfilter/bin/apsfilter      apsfilter script
     /usr/share/apsfilter/SETUP              printer installation script, creates/updates /etc/printcap
     /usr/share/apsfilter/SETUP.cfg          saved settings from last printer setup
     /usr/share/doc/apsfilter/handbook.html  the apsfilter handbook in HTML format
     /etc/apsfilter/                         configuration directory
     /etc/apsfilter/apsfilterrc              global configuration file
     /etc/apsfilter/apsN/                    printer specific configuration directory
     /etc/apsfilter/apsN/apsfilterrc         printer specific configuration file
     $HOME/.apsfilter/apsfilterrc.apsN       user definable printer specific configuration file
     /etc/apsfilter/apsN/smbclient.conf      smbclient config file for printing on Windows remote printer
     /etc/apsfilter/apsN/pap.conf            pap config file for printing on AppleTalk printer
     /etc/apsfilter/apsN/lpr.conf            config file for remote printer that needs special treatment

BUGS

     See apsfilter software center - http://www.apsfilter.org/ - for new versions, bugfixes and known bugs.

     Please use the new tool apsfilter-bug(1) to release bug- or problem reports. It automatically presents you
     a form in an editor window which asks you some standard questions.  If you save and quit the editor
     session, then this report is sent automatically via e-mail to the proper apsfilter mailinglist.

     If apsfilter fails to print something or prints it in a way you wouldn't expect and you want to report an
     apsfilter error then please save the debugging output of one print session using the new aps2file(1)
     utility by typing aps2file -D -Z options file > /dev/null 2> file.debug and including the debugging output
     in the file file.debug into the edit session of the apsfilter-bug utility, so that it is included into the
     mail to the apsfilter mailinglist.

     Please note that you need to run /bin/sh (Bourne Shell), bash or a compatible shell, so that the above
     mentioned output redirection works. Under C-shell (/bin/csh) or tcsh it would't work. If you don't know,
     then simply make sure you use the Bournce shell by typing /bin/sh or bash, then you should have no problems
     with redirection of stdout and stderr (> /dev/null 2> file.debug).

DOCUMENTATION

     See official apsfilter homepage
     http://www.apsfilter.org/handbook.html   Apsfilter Handbook including the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

USER FORUM

     Please send questions to the official apsfilter help channel apsfilter-help@apsfilter.org.  The above
     section BUGS and the file HOWTO-BUGREPORTS tells you how to report bugs.  If you want to know how to
     troubleshoot your apsfilter installation, please read the manpage aps2file(1) and apsfilter-bug(1) as well
     as the Apsfilter Handbook carefully.

HISTORY

     The apsfilter manpage appeared first in apsfilter V 5.4.0.