To print myfile.txt with the default printer, say lpr myfile.txt
To check your print job, say lpq.
To remove your jobs before or during printing, say lprm NNN with NNN the job number the lpq command shows you.
See below for information about printing posters.
If you have trouble reading things on your computer screen - assuming you have a computer - consider changing your font, or the position of your chair and screen. Screens should be at eye level, and your arms should be parallel to the floor when you type. For more information on how to avoid printing, see the Virtual Paper project.
Printing is free for cattell users, but this is only because the costs of billing are too great. PLEASE MINIMIZE YOUR USE OF PRINTING. Sometimes you can do this by editing a file before you print it, e.g., eliminate the raw data from a Systat .cmd file. Other things that help are converting double-space to single-space. In addition, cattell has two commands that will prin ascii (text) files two pages to a sheet (with smaller print) or four pages to a sheet (still smaller). These are called 2print and 4print, respectively. To print "file" with 2print, just say 2print file. This will not work for PostScript files.
Files are of roughly two types: text (ascii) and binary. Only text files can be printed. Thus, the data stored by a spreadsheet program, a statistics program, or a word processor cannot generally be printed without being converted to printable form (which is done automatically by most "print" commands). From a printer's point of view, even text files come in two different varieties, those that have special printer-specific commands and those do not. A file that is created by a text editor has no printing commands and can be printed as is by the printer. (If the file is Unix, you must add dos-type line breaks.) Files created by a word processing software or by a text formatter usually do contain special printing commands. Most of our printers understand both the "PostScript" and HPCL printing languages. You generally do not have to worry about choosing the "right" language as this is done automatically for you by the printing software.
To print myfile.txt with the default printer, say lpr myfile.txt The lpr command has many options, which you can find in man lpr. But the lpr command will work if myfile.txt is either a text (ascii) file, a PostScript file, or a HCPL file.
If the printer is not working, you can use lpr -Ppaxil file.txt for the HP 4M printer in B3
Many programs convert files to PostScript format. Here are some conversion commands and the type of conversions they do, as well as other useful programs (some lacking man pages).
dvips - Convert LaTeX DVI files to PostScript format latex - Convert LaTeX files to DVI format ps4014 - Convert Tektronix 4014 files to PostScript format ps630 - Convert Diablo 630 files to PostScript format psdit - Convert Ditroff intermediate format to PostScript format psplot - Convert PLOT files to PostScript format psroff - Convert Ditroff files to PostScript format ptroff - Convert Troff files to PostScript format 2print - Re-formats a file so that lpr can print 2 pages on a sheet 4print - Re-formats a file so that lpr can print 4 pages on a sheet PS_clean - Removes garbage from a PostScript file clean-ps - Removes garbage from a PostScript file print-wp - Prints WordPerfect and Word PostScript files
From this table, suppose we have a file written in the "LaTeX" 1 formatting language called "file.tex", then we know that first we have to use latex file.tex to convert it to an intermediate DVI output -- "file.dvi", then use dvips file.dvi to convert it to postscript format that could be printed on cattell. dvips outputs to the printer unless you tell it not to (dvips file.dvi -o outputfile).
To use the cattell printer to print from a word processor, tell the word processor to produce a PostScript output file, file.ps upload it (as an ascii or text file), and print it: lpr file.ps.
To find out the status of your printing job, or the general status of the printer, use the command lpq.
To cancel a printing job, type lprm.
The poster printer is a shared department resource and will be managed initially by Sherry Michael. The cost of supplies is not trivial. We have stocked up on an initial set of paper rolls (both sizes) and ink. Until these run out, members of the department may use the printer free of charge. We will face the question of how to pay for supplies in the long term after we have gained some experience with how much use the printer gets and how much it costs to maintain it.
Sherry Michael may offer occasional instruction in how to use it. Those who have had the instruction may qualify for a key to the room.
Please do not wait until just before your conference to ask Sherry how to print. You should not count on her to be available to debug your poster on short notice -- plan ahead and consider making a test poster early during poster preparation.
Undergraduate researchers working with a faculty member or graduate student may print posters under the supervision of their advisor, once they have received the requisite instruction on its use (see above).
The purpose of the poster printer is to produce high-quality posters for research presentations for members of the Psychology department. The printer should not be used for any other purpose without prior approval of the chair. Please respect this policy so that the resource can continue to be available to members of the department at minimal cost.
Latex is a formatting program that gives you more control over the text than any other program. It prints images and graphs (so long as they are converted to PostScript) and is especially good at math. It is very popular, almost standard, among mathematicians, economists, physicists, etc., but it is also great for things like questionnaires and camera-ready copy of books. It is free, and there is a PC version (emtex), which is also free except for the massive amount of disk space it needs. A program is available for converting latex files to html (latex2html, on mail.sas). To see what latex does, take a look at sample2e.tex, which is actually /pkg/TeX/lib/texmf/tex/latex2e/base/sample2e.tex. Then say latex sample2e and dvips sample2e (which outputs to the printer). Books on latex are in B3. An excellent reference guide to the old version is by Kopka and Daly (IMHO the best computer manual on anything that I've ever seen).