lpr

remote printing utility

Syntax:

lpr [-Pprinter] [-#num] [-C class] [-J job] [-T title] 
[-U user] [-i [numcols]] [-wnum] [-p] [-h] [name...]

Options:

-C class
Job classification to use on the burst page. For example:

lpr -C EECS foo.c

causes the system name (the name returned by hostname) to be replaced on the burst page by EECS, and the file foo.c to be printed.

-J job
Job name to print on the burst page. Normally, the first file's name is used.
-P
Force output to a specific printer. Normally, the default printer is used (site dependent), or the value of the environment variable PRINTER is used.
-T title
Title name for pr (instead of the file name).
-U user
User name to print on the burst page, also for accounting purposes. This option is honored only if the real userid is daemon (or that specified in the printcap file instead of daemon), and is intended for those instances where print filters wish to requeue jobs.
-#num
The quantity num is the number of copies desired of each file named. For example:

lpr -#3 foo.c bar.c more.c 

would result in three copies of the file foo.c, followed by three copies of the file bar.c, etc. On the other hand:

cat foo.c bar.c more.c | lpr -#3

will give three copies of the concatenation of the files. Often a site will disable this feature to encourage use of a photocopier instead.

-h
Suppress the printing of the burst page.
-i [numcols]
The output is indented. If the next argument is numeric (numcols), it is used as the number of blanks to be printed before each line; otherwise, 8 characters are printed.
-p
Use pr to format the files.
-wnum
Uses num as the page width for pr.

Description:

The lpr utility uses the spooling daemon lpd to print the named files when facilities become available. If no names appear, the standard input is assumed.

Environment variables:

If the following environment variable exists, it is used by lpr:

PRINTER
Specifies an alternate default printer.

Diagnostics:

If you try to spool too large a file, it will be truncated.

If a user other than root prints a file and spooling is disabled, lpr will print a message saying so and won't put jobs in the queue.

If a connection to lpd on the local machine can't be made, lpr will say that the daemon can't be started.

Diagnostics may be printed in the daemon's log file regarding missing spool files by lpd.

See also:

lpd, lprc, lprq, lprrm, pr utility (QNX OS), printcap file