Specifications
4-53
Printer, Plotter, and Spooler Subsystem Programming
Adding a Printer Using the Printer Colon File
Prerequisite Tasks or Conditions
• The printer must be physically attached to your system.
• Compare the similarities and differences between the printer you want to add and the
currently supported printers. To see a list of supported printers, use the lsdev (list
devices) command, or see Listing all supported and defined printers on page 2-41.
• You must understand the printer colon files and their format. Printer Colon File
Conventions on page 4-21 lists the conventions for printer and attribute names and
values in colon files.
Procedure
1. Select the supported printer that the new printer most closely emulates. You might need
to consult the printer documentation.
2. Use the mkvirprt command to create a virtual printer definition by entering:
mkvirprt
Respond to the prompts, specifying the printer type you selected. Remember that all
device names and queue names must begin with an alphabetic character.
3. Review the attribute values and descriptions with the lsvirprt command. Because you
will need to compare these values in a later step, redirect the output to a temporary file
by entering:
lsvirprt –q QueueName –d QueueDeviceName > tempfile
4. Display the output from the lsvirprt command, either in another window or as a
hardcopy printout.
5. Compare the attribute descriptions and values to those of the printer you are adding.
Determine the changes to be made.
6. Copy the printer colon file from the Predefined Database directory
(/usr/lib/lpd/pio/predef) to the Customized Database directory
(/var/spool/lpd/pio/@local/custom).
7. Change the attribute values in the colon file as described in ”Adding a New Printer Type”
in AIX 5L Version 5.3 Kernel Extensions and Device Support Programming Concepts.
These will include the printer type ( mt attribute), the printer description ( mL attribute),
and the printer–emulation mode ( ep attribute).
8. Run the chvirprt command, specifying the queue name and the queue device name with
no attribute values. This action causes a digested version of the virtual printer definition
to be built.
9. Verify that the newly defined printer prints correctly.
10.If you want to create a predefined virtual printer definition, do so with the piopredef
command.