apsfilter(8)

NAME

apsfilter - magic print filter with auto file type recogni

tion

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 sup

ported 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 di

rectly, or being
supported by gs(1) in some way (possibly using some emula

tion 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 pro

tocol), 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 ac

count.

Apsfilter 's SETUP utility supports in installing all sup

ported printer
types, no matter if local or remote printer, into the print

er 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, WorPer

fect 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 conver

sion.

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 print

ing 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, im

plies

"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 com

pressed 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 initia

tor 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, cre

ates/updates

/etc/printcap

/usr/share/apsfilter/SETUP.cfg saved settings from

last printer

setup

/usr/share/doc/apsfilter/handbook.html the apsfilter hand

book in HTML

format

/etc/apsfilter/ configuration direc

tory
/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 print

ing on Windows re

mote printer

/etc/apsfilter/apsN/pap.conf pap config file for

printing on

AppleTalk printer

/etc/apsfilter/apsN/lpr.conf config file for re

mote 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 redirec

tion 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

fully.

HISTORY

The apsfilter manpage appeared first in apsfilter V 5.4.0.

BSD May 19, 2001

BSD