plain printing

plain printing

[Keith O'Connell]

Hi,

        As I work through my list of problems and misunderstandings on
        my computers, it is now the turn of printing and I would
        appreciate some guidance.

        I have the software in the sig below. and a HP Laserjet 1200
        on a network conection. I am sure that the printer is set up
        OK as prints from AbiWord and Gnumeric come out just as they
        should.

        The problem is printing from Emacs. I can print the files fine
        if I select the "Postscript Print Buffer" option. It come out
        perfectly.

        However, I want the basic print option to work, and when I
        select the less fancy "Print Buffer" option, all I get is a
        single sheet with the dtg, title and page number on the header
        line and nothing else!

        What am I likley to have done wrong? How do I get a basic
        print through a printer that is clearly working?

-- 
Keith.    
 [Debian (stable) & GNU Emacs 21.2.1 - Gnus v5.9.0]

Re: plain printing

[Kai Großjohann]

Keith O'Connell <kroc@blueyonder.co.uk> writes:

>         However, I want the basic print option to work, and when I
>         select the less fancy "Print Buffer" option, all I get is a
>         single sheet with the dtg, title and page number on the header
>         line and nothing else!

Try M-x lpr-buffer RET, please.  Any error msg?  What happens?

(I think "Print Buffer" invokes M-x print-buffer RET, which in turn
invokes the "pr" command for page breaks.)
-- 
This line is not blank.

Re: plain printing

[Keith O'Connell]

>>>>> "KG" == Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@gmx.net> writes:

    >> However, I want the basic print option to work, and when I
    >> select the less fancy "Print Buffer" option, all I get is a
    >> single sheet with the dtg, title and page number on the header
    >> line and nothing else!

    KG> Try M-x lpr-buffer RET, please.  Any error msg?  What happens?

Well, I did that a on a buffer of 104 lines. I got no headers this
time and only got the first two lines of the files
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
						-*- Mode: outline -*-

* order
>--------------------------------------------------------------------

Strangely the "* order" line was printed, right justified, whereas in
the buffer itself it was hard over to the left.

There were no error messages. What next?

-- 
Keith.    
 [Debian (stable) & GNU Emacs 21.2.1 - Gnus v5.9.0]

Re: plain printing

[Rob Thorpe]

Keith O'Connell <kroc@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news:<87znkogwih.fsf@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk>...
> >>>>> "KG" == Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@gmx.net> writes:
>  
>     >> However, I want the basic print option to work, and when I
>     >> select the less fancy "Print Buffer" option, all I get is a
>     >> single sheet with the dtg, title and page number on the header
>     >> line and nothing else!
> 
>     KG> Try M-x lpr-buffer RET, please.  Any error msg?  What happens?
> 
> Well, I did that a on a buffer of 104 lines. I got no headers this
> time and only got the first two lines of the files
> >--------------------------------------------------------------------
> 						-*- Mode: outline -*-
> 
> * order
> >--------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Strangely the "* order" line was printed, right justified, whereas in
> the buffer itself it was hard over to the left.
> 
> There were no error messages. What next?

Try doing lpr filename from the shell, see what happens, try doing pr
filename | lpr then you know if its emacs fault.  It's so long since
modern printers have been exposed to raw text that they have almost
forgotten how to print it.  Finally try using CR-LF line ends.  If you
get really desparate read the lpd manual.

Re: plain printing

[Keith O'Connell]

>>>>> "RT" == Rob Thorpe <robert.thorpe@antenova.com> writes:

    RT> Try doing lpr filename from the shell, see what happens, try
    RT> doing pr filename | lpr then you know if its emacs fault.
    RT> It's so long since modern printers have been exposed to raw
    RT> text that they have almost forgotten how to print it.  Finally
    RT> try using CR-LF line ends.  If you get really desparate read
    RT> the lpd manual.

I did as you suggested.

pr filename | lpr gave the header line with dtg, filename, page number

cat filename | lpr gave the top two lines I mentioned before,

Clearly then this is not an emacs problem, and unless anyone has an
option I should be looking at, I will repost this problem, slightly
revised into a more general linux group.

Thanks

-- 
Keith.    
 [Debian (stable) & GNU Emacs 21.2.1 - Gnus v5.9.0]

Re: plain printing

[Keith O'Connell]

Hi,

        Well I went away and had a play with printcap and can now
        print in the way I couldn't before, but as is always the way,
        another anomaly has appeared.

        pr filename |lpr ;I get my text with a header     - ok

        cat filename |lpr ;I get my text without a header - also ok

        However, if I print buffer from emacs I get my text with a
        header, but after each page is printed emacs pushes out a
        blank page                                         - not ok

        What is the problem here? Please don't say the user!

-- 
Keith.    
 [Debian (stable) & GNU Emacs 21.2.1 - Gnus v5.9.0]

Re: plain printing

[Rob Thorpe]

Keith O'Connell <kroc@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news:<87of13halt.fsf@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk>...
> Hi,
> 
>         Well I went away and had a play with printcap and can now
>         print in the way I couldn't before, but as is always the way,
>         another anomaly has appeared.
> 
>         pr filename |lpr ;I get my text with a header     - ok
> 
>         cat filename |lpr ;I get my text without a header - also ok
> 
>         However, if I print buffer from emacs I get my text with a
>         header, but after each page is printed emacs pushes out a
>         blank page                                         - not ok
> 
>         What is the problem here? Please don't say the user!

The exact command Emacs should give to print the file is:-

pr -F filename | lpr

Check what this does at the shell and check what lpr-buffer does in
Emacs.  If it doesn't produce the right result its still probably a
print setup problem.  You may have set the paper size to letter in
your print setup where it should be A4.

Re: plain printing

[Keith O'Connell]

>>>>> "RT" == Rob Thorpe <robert.thorpe@antenova.com> writes:

    RT> The exact command Emacs should give to print the file is:-

    RT> pr -F filename | lpr

    RT> Check what this does at the shell and check what lpr-buffer
    RT> does in Emacs.  If it doesn't produce the right result its
    RT> still probably a print setup problem.  You may have set the
    RT> paper size to letter in your print setup where it should be
    RT> A4.

This is a little further forward as the pr -F filename | lpr also
pusehes out the spare page. I see that the pr -F option is designed to
do form feed, but this can't be what is meant, all these spare
pages. Am I right in assuming that the system page size is set in
/etc/papersize? If so it says a4.

Any suggestions?

-- 
Keith.    
 [Debian (stable) & GNU Emacs 21.2.1 - Gnus v5.9.0]

Re: plain printing

[Rob Thorpe]

Keith O'Connell <kroc@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message news:<877k7rs1ve.fsf@smtp.blueyonder.co.uk>...
> >>>>> "RT" == Rob Thorpe <robert.thorpe@antenova.com> writes:
> 
>     RT> The exact command Emacs should give to print the file is:-
> 
>     RT> pr -F filename | lpr
> 
>     RT> Check what this does at the shell and check what lpr-buffer
>     RT> does in Emacs.  If it doesn't produce the right result its
>     RT> still probably a print setup problem.  You may have set the
>     RT> paper size to letter in your print setup where it should be
>     RT> A4.
> 
> This is a little further forward as the pr -F filename | lpr also
> pusehes out the spare page. I see that the pr -F option is designed to
> do form feed, but this can't be what is meant, all these spare
> pages. Am I right in assuming that the system page size is set in
> /etc/papersize? If so it says a4.
> 
> Any suggestions?

/etc/papersize is advice to programs, it is not used by lpr itself. 
They all should obey it, but only some do (Emacs should but doesn't).

Anyway, to fix.  My version of pr says:

       -l PAGE_LENGTH, --length=PAGE_LENGTH
              set the page length to PAGE_LENGTH (66) lines (default
number of
              lines of text 56, and with -F 63)

So I'd adjust this variable in Emacs by customizing
lpr-page-header-switches.