Printing Guide

Printer Etiquette

The public printers in the mathematics department are shared resources. It is important that you do your part in maintaining their functionality.

Pick up your print jobs as quickly as possible. This is especially important for the Konica copier in the copier room.
Learn to reload paper trays and do so when your job empties the printer of paper.
Be aware that at certain times the copier is heavily used for assignments and tests and avoid tying it up for non-critical printing at these times.
Be aware if your postscript or pdf document is intended for A4 paper. This will cause the Konica copier to stop and ask for A4 paper to be loaded. When this happens it can only be overridden by pressing the appropriate physical button on the copier.

A Short Guide to Printing in the Math Department

Basically, there are 5 public printers in the department connected to the Math network. They are

ljb -- Location: basement hall opposite B12: HP LaserJet 4250n printer.
lj2 -- Location: second floor computer room (215): HP LaserJet 4350dtn printer with duplex capability. Default mode is simplex printing.
color -- Location: second floor computer room (215): HP color LaserJet 4600dn printer with duplex capability. Default mode is simplex printing.
lj3 -- Location: Third floor hall: HP LaserJet 4000n printer
k2 -- Location: second floor copier room (202): Konica Minolta bizhub C550 (the copier machine, which also works as printer and scanner). The default mode is simplex B/W printing.

In addition there are several virtual printers which are the same physical printers as above, but with different default behavior.

lj2d -- This is the same as lj2 except that duplex printing is the default.
colord -- This is the same as color but printing in duplex mode.
k2d -- This is the same as k2 except that duplex printing is the default.
k2ss -- This is the same as k2 except that the default mode is simplex printing with output stapled.
k2ds -- This is the same as k2 except that the default mode is duplex printing with output stapled.
k2c -- This is the same as k2 except that color printing is the default.
k2dc -- This is the same as k2 except that duplex color printing is the default.
k2ssc -- This is the same as k2 except that the default mode is simplex color printing with output stapled.
k2dsc -- This is the same as k2 except that the default mode is duplex color printing with output stapled.
k2raw -- This is the same as k2 except that the printer driver on the prinserver is not used, the print job is sent to k2 untouched - useful for printing from machines (such as Windows machines) that had their own printer driver.
mailpdf -- This is not a printer but a way to create a pdf file. Instead of printing the document a pdf file will be emailed to the user issued the print command.

There are three printing commands lpr, enscript, and dvips which are used with postscript, text and dvi files respectively as described below. All of these commands permit a -P, option to specify a non-default printer or non-default output. To print postscript, pdf, or text files, use lpr. If you want to specify a printer other than the default, type "lpr -Pfoo file", where foo is the name of the printer. Thus, to print a postscript file named FILE.ps on the second floor B/W printer in 215, type

     lpr -Plj2 FILE.ps

For printing to the color printer type:

     lpr -Pcolor FILE.ps

Postscript files should begin with the first line:

%!PS-Adobe

There should not be a space or tab or blank line before this in the file. So if you got it through the mail, strip the mail headers first.

To print a pdf file named FILE.pdf doubled sided on the printer in room 215, type

     lpr -Plj2d FILE.pdf

To print a postscript file named FILE.ps doubled sided and stapled on the Konica copier, type

     lpr -Pk2ds FILE.ps

For plain text files, such as email you can obtain nicer output by using the enscript command. Thus

     enscript -Plj2 FILE.txt

will print the file FILE.txt on lj2 nicely formatted with a header containing the date.

DVI files from TeX can be conveniently printed on all of the printers. For example,

     dvips -Plj2d FILE.dvi

will output a double sided document on lj2. Any of the other printers or virtual printers can be substituted with the -P option to obtain output on the desired printer in the desired form.

There is also a collection of scripts for printing, which some people find easier to use than the -P option. They are not printers, but commands you run to print a file. They all start with dvi for DVI files and lpr for text and postscript. To print a DVI file on ljb, type "dvib filename". To print it on the laserjet in the second floor computer room, type "dvi2 filename".

Duplex printing to lj2: If you are printing a dvi file, you can print it on two sides of the page on the printer in 215 by typing

     dvi2d filename

To print text or postscript files on two sides of a page on the printer lj2, type

     lpr2d filename

Duplex printing to k2: If you are printing a dvi file, you can printing it one two sides of the page on the printer in 202 by typing

dvik2d filename

To print other types of files on two sides of a page, type

     lprk2d filename

How to add a department printer on a Windows machine

This should work for a machine in the department as well as a laptop connected to the Northwestern wireless network.

If you know how to add a printer on your Windows machine you can add a department printer in the usual way, i.e. going to "control panel", clicking on "printers and faxes", "add a printer", etc. When asked if you are adding a local printer or a network printer, select "network printer". At the next step select "add a printer on the Internet..." and enter the following URL (assuming you want to add "lj2"):

     http://printserver.math.northwestern.edu:631/printers/lj2

Replace "lj2" with the name of the printer that you really want to add. To add the copier use printer name "k2raw"

At the final step you need to select the appropriate driver depending on the brand and model of the printer you are adding - e.g. lj2 is a HP LaserJet 4350. Look above for a complete list of department printers.

How to add a department printer on a Mac OS X

(Note: The fine details may vary depending on the machine model and OS version.)

Apple > System Preferences > Print & Fax

Click on the "+" button to add another printer.

In the menu that pops up, make sure that "Default Browser" is selected on top. On the bottom of this window will be "More Printers..." Instead of just clicking this button, hold down the "alt/ option" key found to the left of the apple key on your keyboard, while clicking the "More Printers..."

On the top pull down menu, the selection "Advanced" can now be found. Choose "Advanced"

Now from the Device: pull down menu select Internet Printing Protocol using HTTP.

Give the Device Name: the printer name for future use and into the Device URI: insert:

     http://printserver.math.northwestern.edu:631/printers/<printer name>

Alternatively, for the Internet Printing Protocol select IPP, hostname printserver.math.northwestern.edu, queue printers/<printer name>.

Finally, from the Printer Model, select the printer model given in the list above.

(i.e., ljb is HP Laser Jet 4250)

- Last Updated: Feb 25, 2008

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