Specifications

6-32
Guide to Printers and Printing
tek4014
Print files formatted for a Tektronix 4014 device
plot Print plot–formatted files
Filters are provided with the print service to translate print requests with these formats to the
PostScript language. For example, to convert a file containing ASCII text to PostScript code,
the filter takes that text and writes a program around it, specifying printing parameters such
as fonts and the layout of the text on a page.
After the PostScript filters are installed, they are invoked automatically by the print service
when a user specifies a content type for a print request with the –T option. For example, if a
user enters the command
lp –d psprinter –T simple report2
the ASCII file report2 (a file with an ASCII or simple format) is converted to PostScript
automatically, as long as the destination printer (psprinter) is defined to the system as a
PostScript printer.
Additional PostScript Capabilities Provided by Filters
The filters described in Providing Filters on page 6-19 also take advantage of PostScript
capabilities to provide additional printing flexibility. Most of these features can be accessed
through the mode option (invoked by the –y option) to the lp command. These filters allow
you to use several unusual options for your print jobs. The following list describes these
options and shows the option to include on the lp command line for each one.
–y reverse Reverse the order in which pages are printed
–y landscape Change the orientation of a physical page from portrait to
landscape
–y x= number,y=
number
Change the default position of a logical page on a physical
page by moving the origin
–y group= number Group multiple logical pages on a single physical page
–y magnify= number Change the logical size of each page in a document
–o length= number Select the number of lines in each page of the document
–P num_list Select, by page numbers, a subset of a document to be
printed, where num_list is page numbers or page ranges
separated by commas (for example, 1,4,6–8,14– prints pages
1, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 14 through the end)
–n number Print multiple copies of a document
Note: If these filters are to be used with an application that creates PostScript output,
make sure that the format of the application conforms to the format of the PostScript file
structuring comments. In particular, the beginning of each PostScript page must be
marked by the comment
%%Page: label ordinal
where ordinal is a positive integer that specifies the position of the page in the sequence
of pages in the document, and label is an arbitrary page label.
For example, you have a file called report2 that has a content type simple (meaning that
the content of this file is in ASCII format). You want to print six pages of this file (pages 4
through 9) with two logical pages on each physical page. Because one of the printers on
your system (psprinter) is a PostScript printer, you can do this by entering the following
command:
lp –d psprinter –T simple –P 4–9 –y group=2 myfile
The filter that groups these logical pages will try to position the pages on the physical page
to maximize space utilization. Thus when you specify group=2, the pages will be printed
side by side, so that the physical page will be landscape orientation. Landscape mode,