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
SEE ALSO¶
aps2file(1),
apsfilter-bug(1),
apspreview(1),
gs(1),
gs-hpdj(1),
lpr(1),
smbclient(1),
apsfilterrc(5),
printcap(5),
lpd(8)
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.