which, if any, interface script is my printer using?

[itfellow]

Hi all,

I am running Openserver 5.0.5 and have been trying to get a printer working on a Linksys 3-port print server. I installed the printer/printserver through scoadmin, printer manager, and have managed to get the printing working. However, the formatting is messed up (stair-step). I am pretty sure that a proper interface script would do the trick, but I am not sure how to get the printer to use the script that I have.

There was no option to specify an interface script when I installed the printer through scoadmin (remote printer), so I tried pointing to it by hand. I modified the /var/spool/lp/admins/lp/printers/<printer>/configuration file so that the "Interface: " entry points to my script in the /var/spool/lp/models dir, instead of being blank, and I made sure that the script (properly named) was copied into the /var/spool/lp/admins/lp/interfaces and model directories.

Is this enough to make the printer use the script? How can I tell which, if any, script it is using?

 

[aseidas]

I have had a hard time with this as well on linksys print servers. I have been able to get it to work by using the linkys bi-admin utility to set auto convert LF->CR cannot remember exactly where it is and I don't have the software installed anymore this was a couple of years ago but it worked for me.
Once the bi-admin utility was installed it was not hard to find, try it if you cannot find it I will download the utility and see if I can find the setting.
-Aseidas

 

[itfellow]

Aseidas, thanks for the suggestion - it worked like a charm. I already had bi-admin installed on my Windows machine, so it only took me a minute or two to find the setting.

Now I'm just trying to figure out how to issue the form feed automatically. There is a spot on the config tool for a "strng after job", and I was thinking a form feed could be inserted there, but "ff" didn't work. I'm looking for other printer control codes that might do this.

Did you have this problem?

 

[apeasecpc]

The interface script is normally:
/usr/spool/lp/admins/lp/interfaces/<printer name>

Once a printer is set up you can modify or even overwrite its interface script to make adjustments.

Form feed is a control character so you have to use the ascii octadecimal or control character notation to refer to it in your post-job printer string.

 

[itfellow]

apeasecpc, the octadecimal ascii code for form feed didn't work, but the hex code did. I stuck it in the "string after job" setting and it's working. Thanks for the suggestion.

About the interface script, there was no script created when I installed the printer, probably because it was a remote printer install (through the print server). Anyway, I stuck a script that I have in the interfaces directory, among other directories that I've listed above, but I wasn't sure if that was enough to make sure that the interface script is actually being used. Will the script be used just because I copied it there?

 

[apeasecpc]

I suggested octadecimal because that is what unix normally uses for ascii codes. Your configuration tool apparently uses its own convention.

If the printer is a remote printer there should not be an interface script. The interface script you copied into the interfaces directory will be ignored.

If you want to route remote printing through an interface script you must set up a dummy local printer that processes the print job and then redirect it to the remote printer.