MDQS Printing Commands

MDQS Printing Commands

An Introduction to MDQS printing commands

Printing

The MDQS system has a different command set than the more familiar LPD-based queuing system used by many of the department's Unix machines. The primary command for printing under MDQS is qpr, and is rather analogous to the lpr command used on other systems. The most common usage of the command is something like:
qpr [-q queuename] [-x option] filename
although it is possible to use it as a pipe also. The arguments in square brackets may be omitted, and the -x option argument may be repeated as necessary. If the queue name is omitted, it defaults to the value set in your $PRINTER environment variable. The available options are listed in the table below. Note that some options are only available on printers that support the required features. Note also that for options that require a parameter, no space should be given between the "=" and the parameter.

Option Default Description Required Features

length=n 66 Page length, in rows

width=n 80 (port)
132 (land) Page width, in columns

indent=n 0 Sets indentation

lit
nolit nolit Interprets text literally

land
port port Landscape or portrait mode

duplex
simplex duplex (if supported) Single or double sided printing Duplex

ps
postscript
text
ascii auto-detects Forces interpretation of file as postscript or text. Normally not needed as will auto-detect.

wrap
trunc
nowrap
notrun trunc
(same as
nowrap) Determines whether long lines wrap or are truncated

A more complete list of qualifiers can be found by reading the manual page (man qpr). When printing to a pay-for-print queue, account and password information will be requested. When printing to a quota'ed queue, the quota will be silently deducted.

Viewing and controlling jobs

To view the status of your jobs or a queue, use the command qstat [-q queuename] If the queue name is omitted, it uses the environmental variable $PRINTER. Job names will consist of the submitter's username followed by a job ID number, eg bigboote.42. The qmod -d queuename JobID command can be used to delete the job JobID in queue queuename. As users can ordinarily only delete their own jobs, the job ID should not include the username. The man pages provide more information on these commands.

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Option	Default	Description	Required Features
length=`n`	66	Page length, in rows
width=`n`	80 (port) 132 (land)	Page width, in columns
indent=`n`	0	Sets indentation
lit nolit	nolit	Interprets text literally
land port	port	Landscape or portrait mode
duplex simplex	duplex (if supported)	Single or double sided printing	Duplex
ps postscript text ascii	auto-detects	Forces interpretation of file as postscript or text. Normally not needed as will auto-detect.
wrap trunc nowrap notrun	trunc (same as nowrap)	Determines whether long lines wrap or are truncated