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Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:13:07 -0700
From: Brian Dessent <brian AT dessent DOT net>
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Subject: Re: Print
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r wrote:

> When I try to print under cygwin ( a text file too ) with 'lpr' I can hear the
> printer ( Lexmark Z600 Series connected via usb to a simple desktop pc )
> move the cursor to be ready for printing but nothing happens.
> I tried with text files and .ps too.
> 
> 'lpr test'
> 'lpr test2.ps'

The thing you have to realize about lpr is that it does no translation
of the input whatsoever, it simply sends the file to the printer
verbatim.  Most printers these days only recognise a specialized
proprietary language, which varies between manufacturer and model.  The
chance of a printer being able to directly interpret postscript is
almost nil, unless you're talking about an expensive workgroup/server
style of printer.  Even text files need encoding in many cases.  In
short, this translation falls under the job of the printer driver, which
is not involved in the equation at all when you use lpr.  You either
need to use something that does use the Windows printer driver (like
notepad for text files), or something that has its own equivalent
functionality (like ghostscript.)

There was a recent thread on the topic which you should read:
<http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2008-07/threads.html#00365>

> I've installed gsview, so tried 'gsprint test2.ps', but here initially
> nothing happened ( not even the printer cursor moving as before ). After
> 1 minute the computer slow and I see that spoolv.exe process, burns 98% of
> cpu usage. The output at prompt is :
> 
> $ gsprint test2.ps
> Copyright (C) 2003-2006, Ghostgum Software Pty Ltd.  All Rights Reserved.
> 2006-02-24 gsprint 1.9
> GPL Ghostscript 8.63 (2008-08-01)
> Copyright (C) 2008 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
> This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
> Page 1, PRINT

This should in theory work, but you'd need to configure ghostscript
(through command line arguments or whatever) to tell it what kind of
printer you have so that it can translate postscript into the format
that the printer can understand -- assuming that ghostscript supports
your printer model.

Brian

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