{"id":149,"date":"2019-01-14T12:15:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T17:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/?page_id=149"},"modified":"2026-01-22T15:40:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T20:40:22","slug":"printing-on-linux","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/docs\/printing\/printing-on-linux\/","title":{"rendered":"Printing on Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"149\" class=\"elementor elementor-149\" data-elementor-post-type=\"page\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-39a0e94b elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"39a0e94b\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-3a7c7699\" data-id=\"3a7c7699\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-8cb623f elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"8cb623f\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div>by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cs.rutgers.edu\/~makmur\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hanz Makmur<\/a> &#8211; modified Jan 16, 2026<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<article>\n<article><strong><br>NOTE<\/strong>: Jan 16, 2026. This is a new printing system. The older method still works, and we are in a transition.&nbsp;<span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">As of the Spring semester of 2026, the CS department has joined the University PaperCut printing system. This system is centralized and run by OIT.&nbsp;<\/span><\/article>\n<article><\/article>\n<p>These instructions will show you how to print to the Computer Science public printers.&nbsp; See the <a href=\"https:\/\/resources.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources\/printing\/public-printers-tips\/\">list of available CS printers<\/a> for more detailed info.<\/p>\n<details>\n<summary><strong>1. Setting Up Printing from CUPS on Linux<\/strong><\/summary>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px\">We are still trying to determine how to do this for Linux. In the meantime, please use the older steps below.<\/div>\n<div>\n<details>\n<summary style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>Older steps.<\/strong><\/summary>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px\">This is an old setup. It is left here for reference only.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-left: 40px\">By default, all print jobs will have a header\/banner page. If you have a private printer or plan to print to any color or poster printer, you should <b>turn off the banner page<\/b> printed before each job.<\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">Other Linux\/Unix machines <b>not maintained by LCSR staff<\/b> may have their own printing engine. These machines are normally administered by the user and are beyond the control of LCSR staff. For these machines, the simplest way to print to Computer Science printers is as follows:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n<ol>\n<li>Install the CUPS software for your Linux OS.<\/li>\n<li>Edit or add if one does not exist a file named <b>\/etc\/cups\/client.conf<\/b> enter this line, and save it.\n<div><code>ServerName printserver.cs.rutgers.edu<\/code><\/div>\n<p>After you restart your CUPSD, you can print to all printers available on printserver.cs.rutgers.edu.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>Verifying your setup:<br>To see a list of available printer queues, type <code>lpstat -p<\/code><br>To check the specific printer queue type, use the <code>lpq -P <em>printername<\/em>.<\/code><\/li>\n<li>To set your default printer to printer named <strong>cbim_printer_1<\/strong> in Linux bash shell, type:<br><code>export PRINTER=cbim_printer_1<\/code>, or add this line to your .bashrc file so that you don&#8217;t have to do it again after you log in.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n<details>\n<summary><strong>2. Printing from Linux\/Unix.<\/strong><\/summary>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">Once you have set up your Linux printer queue to print, you must issue a standard print command from your application.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">To print from a Unix shell, normally, you would enter the following:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px\"><code>lpr -P <span style=\"color: blue\">printername<\/span> <i>filename<\/i><\/code><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">To print <b>without a banner page<\/b>, enter the following command.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px\"><code>lpr <span style=\"color: #b60000\">-h<\/span> -P <span style=\"color: #0000ff\">printeraname<\/span> <i>filename<\/i><\/code><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">To print in <b>double sided<\/b> on printers defaulting in duplex, you would enter:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px\"><code>lpr -P <span style=\"color: blue\">printername<\/span> <span style=\"color: #b60000\"><b>-o sides=two-sided-long-edge<\/b><\/span>&nbsp;<i>filename<\/i><\/code><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\">There are a lot of options you can set with a CUPS driver. See <a href=\"https:\/\/printserver.cs.rutgers.edu\/help\/options.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CUPS printing options<\/a> for further details. <b>CUPS options do not work with SunOS machines.<\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><span style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Limitation:<\/span> All laser printers have a maximum of 50 pages\/job.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/details>\n<p>Here are a few Linux printer commands and purpose.<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\" valign=\"top\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpr -P printername filename<\/code><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\n<p style=\"margin: 0px\">To print a filename&nbsp; from a Unix shell<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 5px 5px\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpr -P printername -o sides=two-sided-long-edge filename<\/code><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 5px 5px\">\nTo print a filename with double side print.\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpstat -s<\/code><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\nsee the default printer, all printer queues, and whether the CUPS server is actually running\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpstat -p<\/code><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\nChecking if your printer is online and ready.\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpstat -d<\/code><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\nFinding out which printer is currently the <b>default<\/b>.\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpstat -a<\/code><\/p><\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\nSee which printers are accepting print jobs.\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpc status<\/code>\n<\/p><\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\nA legacy-style view of all printer queues.\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 0px\"><code>lpinfo -m<\/code>\n<\/p><\/td>\n<td style=\"border-width: 1px;border-color: #9a9a9a;padding: 1px 5px\">\nListing all <b>drivers<\/b> (PPDs) available on your system.\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><br><\/div><div>For more info, see the <a href=\"https:\/\/resources.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources\/printing\/public-printers-tips\/\">list of Computer Science Public Printers<\/a> page.<\/div>\n<p>For help with our systems or immediate assistance, visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cs.rutgers.edu\/~operator\/\">LCSR Operator<\/a> at CoRE 235 or call 848-445-2443. Otherwise, see <a href=\"https:\/\/resources.cs.rutgers.edu\/support\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>CS HelpDesk.<\/b><\/a> Don&#8217;t forget to include your NetID along with descriptions of your problem.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Hanz Makmur &#8211; modified Jan 16, 2026 NOTE: Jan 16, 2026. This is a new printing system. The older method still works, and we are in a transition.&nbsp;As of the Spring semester of 2026, the CS department has joined the University PaperCut printing system. This system is centralized and run by OIT.&nbsp; These instructions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":459,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-149","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":63,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10603,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/149\/revisions\/10603"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.rutgers.edu\/resources-cs-rutgers-edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}