Printing in Apps

Forum: Printers
Topic: Printing in Apps
started by: clivesay

Posted by clivesay on June 26 2004,18:37

I have an elementary question.

I used apsfilter to setup my usb printer and successfully printed a test page. I thought I would try printing from an app (abiword) so I went to the control panel and turned printing on. When I try to print from a document in AbiWord, nothing happens. Can someone give me an idea on what I need to do? Thanks

Chris

Posted by roberts on June 26 2004,23:47

Two ways.

When the print dialog box opens in Abiword it only has lpr
You should add so that it reads as such:

lpr -h -Plp

Where lp is the name of the printer that you created in Apsfilter.
When you get bored doing that each time then:

edit /opt/bootlocal.sh and add:

export PRINTER=lp

Again where lp is the name of the ptrinter that you created with apsfilter.
Then the each time you boot your PRINTER will be defined. If running from liveCD be sure to add the /opt/bootlocal.sh to your filetool.lst

Posted by clivesay on June 27 2004,00:22

So when I add the entry into bootlocal.sh the printer will show up for any application that has a print option?

Thanks, Robert.

Chris

Posted by roberts on June 27 2004,01:05

The printer options will not automatically show up within an applications's dialog box. But the lpr command will work without those options.

Open a shell and type lpr --help
There you will see the PRINTER enviornment variable that I suggested by initializing in the /opt/bootlocal.sh

Posted by clivesay on July 14 2004,22:10

Any idea why I get this info when I try to run apsfilter from the live CD? I have successfully been able to print a test page from apsfilter on a HD install. Thanks

Ok to print testpage? [y/n] y

Creating test page...
sh: line 1: ijsgimpprint: command not found
GNU Ghostscript 7.05: Can't start ijs server "ijsgimpprint"
**** Unable to open the initial device, quitting.

real 0m0.051s
user 0m0.040s
sys 0m0.020s

Printing test page...
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jul 14 17:07 /tmp/apsfilter882/test_page.aps

real 0m0.003s
user 0m0.000s
sys 0m0.000s
[ press RETURN to continue ]

Posted by clivesay on July 15 2004,02:32

Well, I think I answered my own question. It seemed that the gimpprint option of 5 wasn't working but option 4 seems to work fine with a HD install. I haven't tried from the live cd.

Chris

Posted by clivesay on July 15 2004,03:21

I am really trying to get this printing thing down. I guess I need to be told like a 2nd grader.

What is exactly the apsfilter printer name? Is it the driver name? I added that info to bootlocal.sh and rebooted but I just don't seem to have any luck. I am trying to print with Abiword.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks

Posted by clivesay on July 17 2004,04:33

To anyone who is interested, it looks like I figured out my own problem. I realized that I was forgetting to complete the final step in setting up a printer by choosing the "I" option. This takes you to where you name your printer. After that, reload the printer. If you print from an app, do what robert states above. So if you gave your printer the name EPSON, your print command would be "lpr -h -PEPSON".

I can't believe I was just missing that one step! Linux is good at making you feel stupid at times!!

Chris

Posted by a2d2 on Jan. 10 2005,21:06

@CLIVE

...hi,
forgetting the final step is very easy in apsfilter - but your state

"After that, r e l o a d the printer"

is most important.
-thats the idea, I missed-

THX, soo late
this forum is great !!! :;):