University of Minnesota
School of Mathematics
School of Mathematics          
    math.umn.edu / systems_guide / printing

Printing

Contents

Printer Names
Command Line LPR Print Commands
    Multiple Pages per Printed Sheet
Setting the Default Printer
Printer Quotas
Attaching University letterhead to a job
Printing From the Notebook Network
Defining MacOS Printers

Overview

Printers are located on each floor of Vincent Hall.  A list of printer names and locations is provided by the CUPS print server. 

The default printer depends on computer and account settings and can be checked with lpq and set with lpoptions -dprinter.  The curious may want to read An Overview of the Common UNIX Printing System.

CUPS User Manual
Pdf version of CUPS User Manual

Classic LPR commands are provided by CUPS.

Printer Names

Department printers are linked to their queue on the print server's web interface. Personal and workgroup printers are not listed, but show up on the print server web interface. To view a queue, your web browser needs to be in the School of Mathematics network or proxy web traffic through SSH.

Basement floor

vinp005 - VinH 5
vinp011-cl

1st floor

vinp105-cfdl

2nd floor

vinp270d - VinH 270D

3rd floor

vinp314 - VinH 314
vinp363 - outside 363

4th floor

vinp426 - outside 426
vinp454 - outside 454

5th floor

vinp502

Command Line Lpr Print Commands

gtklpq screenshot from 5/11/2009 Mac, Linux and other operating systems use the Cups printing system.

Graphical print apps (like GtkLP) change between releases or differ between OSes, but they can be easy to figure out.

The "lpr" set of commands have been fairly stable for the past 20 years. Below are some commands to control print jobs.

Default Printer and Basic Commands
Set a default printer for your account with 
lpoptions -dvinp105-cfdl
Print a job, see the queue, remove a job: 
lpr sample.txt
lpq
lprm 55555
Starting Print Jobslpr -Pvinp270d sample.txt
View Printer Queueslpq -Pvinp314
Deleting Print Jobslprm 55555
Replace vinp555 with the real printer and 'sample.txt' with the file to be printed. Replace 5555 with the integer of the print job you would like to cancel.
Multiple Pages per Printed Sheet
To print four pages on a single sheet, use the number-up option for lpr. 
lpr -o number-up=4 foobar.ps
Single Side Printing with Duplex Printers
Some printers have duplex attachements so they can print on both sides of paper sheets. By default the duplex option will be used. The lpr can pass an option to make the printer use only one side (aka simplex printing).
lpr -o sides=one-sided -Pvinp270d sample.txt
If the printer has duplex hardware, but is printing single sided, you can set the duplex option.
lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge -Pvinp270d sample.txt
Changing Media Type
If you would like to print on different media types, such as transperancies, you can set the media option.
*Note: You need to include the one-sided option so the printer does not do duplex printing*
lpr -h -o media=Transparency -o sides=one-sided -Pfructose sample.txt
Mulitple Pages per Side
Besides printing on both sides of a sheet, you can use mpage to print multiple pages on a single side but only for plain text or postscript files. PDFs can be converted to postscript using pdf2ps 
pdf2ps lab7.pdf lab7.ps
mpage -2 -Pvinp005 lab7.ps lab6.txt

Setting the Default Printer

Command Line for Linux/Mac

Run lpoptions -d printername, or add export PRINTER=printername to your ~/.bash_profile and restart any shells (or run the export printer command in them).

Linux Gnome desktop

  1. Choose System > Preferences > Hardware > Default Printer. The Printer List window appears.
  2. Select a printer from the list and click Close.

Mac desktop

  1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu and a new window should open up.
  2. Click Printers & Faxes. The Printer List window appears.
  3. Click the Add Printer button.
  4. Choose "LPR Printers using IP" from the pop-up menu.
  5. Enter the printer name.

Note that you may need to enter a password to make changes.

Windows

  1. Locate the new name for your daily usage printer. If you used cone, your new printer name will be vinp270d for instance.
  2. Open the printer list. Determine which version of windows you are running, then follow these instructions:
    For Windows XP: Click Start, then Printers and Faxes.

    For Windows 2000: Click Start, then Settings, then Printers.

  3. Locate the printer in the list. Right click on the printer and click "Set as Default Printer". A black checkbox should appear in the printer icon if you did it correctly.

Printer Quota Policy

The School of Mathematics provides print services to its users, including faculty, staff, and students. Printers are intended to be used for university business purposes only. This may include printing of business documents, homework, exams, or research materials. In an effort to keep the resources open for business use, as well as keep costs down, the School of Mathematics implements a per-user quota on printing. The quota definition is split into two parts: policy and implementation.

Policy

Implementation

  1. All users’ current public printing usage levels will be checked on an hourly basis.
  2. Users that are found to be printing at a rate of above 250 pages/week will be sent a warning email that they are printing at too high a rate. No other action will be taken.
  3. Users will receive another warning email when they reach 75% of their allotted quota (750 printer pages). No other action will be taken.
  4. Users that print greater than 1000 pages in a 28 day period will be placed on a blacklist for a period of 28 days. They will be notified by email.
  5. All public printers are set to decline print jobs from any users that are on the blacklist.
  6. Appeals: Users may appeal their addition to the blacklist on reasonable grounds.
    • Graduate students should speak with their advisor. If the advisor finds the appeal justifiable, they should speak to the department head on behalf of their student.
    • Visitors and postdocs should speak directly with the department head.
    • It is recommended that those seeking to print above the quota seek an appeal before they are added to the blacklist. The 750 page warning would be a good time to explore this.

Attaching University letterhead to a job

A print queue has been setup to allow the creation of pdf files from print jobs that attach University letterhead to the first page of the job. The name of the print queue is "Letterhead". Upon printing to it, an e-mail will be sent to the owner of the print job with an attached pdf. The pdf will be the print job in question, with the first page including the University letterhead.

Please note that this is intended for smaller jobs. Any e-mails sent over 25 megabytes - including attachments - will not be delivered.

Printing from the notebook network

Wireless connections don't have access to our print server, but wired laptop connections can print. Contact adm@math.umn.edu to try our beta service for authenticated wireless printing.

  1. Copy a printer's link from the list of printers. For example, to use the printers in VinH 270d, copy the link for vinp270d which looks similar to http://toad.math.umn.edu:631/printers/vinp270d
  2. Add a new printer on your laptop. Details differ between OS versions.

    Linux/Unix
    These directions are for configuring with CUPS directly, but you can look in the desktop interface for a setup option that should be similar to the Mac OS X setup.
    1. Log in to your laptop's print server at http://localhost:631 with an administrator account.
    2. Click the "Add Printer" button.
    3. Add the name, location, and description.
    4. Select a Internet Printing Protocol (ipp) device.
    5. Paste the device URI for the printer (it was copied in the first step) and change the protocol from "http" to "ipp".
    6. Select the make of the printer.
    7. Select the printer model.
    8. Try to print a test page to see if everything is working.
    Mac OS X (10.7, Lion)
    1. Open "System Preferences..." from the Apple menu in the top left.
    2. In the "Hardware" row, click on "Print & Scan".
    3. Click the "+" button at the bottom of the printer list (you may have to click the lock to enable changes).
    4. In the "Add Printer" dialog window that opens, click the "IP" icon in the toolbar.
    5. Adapt the fields from the printer URL copied above. The fields will be something like... protocol:IPP, address:toad.math.umn.edu, queue:/printers/vinp888.
    Windows
    1. Click "Start > Settings > Printers & Faxes".
    2. Click on "Add a Printer".
    3. Select "Network Printer".
    4. Select "Connect to this printer on the internet" and paste the device URI for the printer (it was copied in the first step).
    5. Select the make and model of the printer.
    6. Tell windows if you want the printer to be the default.
  3. The printer should now be added.

Defining Mac OS Printers with LPR

Mac OS X

  1. Run the Printer Center program which resides in /Applications/Utilities folder.
  2. Choose 'Add Printer' from the Printers menu.
  3. Select 'IP printing' in the top pull down box of the window that step 2 opened.
  4. Enter toad.math.umn.edu in the Printer's Address box.
  5. Uncheck the 'Use default queue on server' check box.
  6. Enter the name of the printer (see above) in the Queue Name box.
  7. Choose the printer model (see above) in the bottom pull down box.
  8. Click on 'Add'.
  9. Note which printer is the default printer. You may want to change the choice.

Other Mac OS Printing Resources

Setting up Apple computers with OS 9 for printing and OS X for printing.