New A3 and Duplex Printer Queue hp-3b for the HP LaserJet 5000

Gary Mitchell December 1998

This text is available on-line as
hp-3b.htm

Index

Capabilities

The printer queue hp-3b is connected to an HP laserJet 5000. It can print on A4 and A3 paper. It can print on one side or on both sides.

Printing from PCs

You will need a special print driver installed on your PC. Contact the CFG (Phil Symonds).

Printing from sparcs

You tell the printer how you want the document printed by appending printer options to the print command. Printer options are inserted after the lp command and written as 

-o option
When you want several options you just repeat the -o 
-o option1 -o option2 -o option3
If you find repeating the -o command tedious then you can have just a single -o followed by several options all inside a double quoted string. 
-o "option1 option2 option3"

Defaults

If you send a file to hp-3b the default is to print it on A4 paper using both sides.
Note
This default can be disturbed if anyone alters the default configuration of the printer by abusing the setup menus on the printer itself.
Nobody except Computing Facilities Group Staff should alter any of the setup items on the printer.
If in any doubt be specific: use the "-o A3" or "-o A4" option on the print command to explicitly state the paper size or other options.

Some of the Possible Options

There are lots of options - but you can't mix just any of them! Some are valid only for PostScript files while others are valid only plain text files.
Note on PostScript (PS) Files
You can't just use print command line options to alter the paper size for PostScript files. The paper margins are specified inside the PostScript file when it is composed so to print PS files on A3 paper you must specify A3 paper size when the file is made. If you don't specify large paper then the default (usually A4) document but force it via the command line options to print on A3 paper it will simply appear in the corner of the A3 paper. The same is true of Landscape and Portrait for PS files. Set this when you compose the PS file - command line options cannot change the file at print time. The only options for PS files which do have an influence are
  • simplex
  • duplex
  • hduplex
Netscape and Printing
Netscape has a print menu where you can specify paper size - but it only offers Letter/Legal/Executive/A4. As a result you can only have A4. You can however choose Portrait/Landscape in the Netscape print menu.
options for all types of files options for PostScript files Only options for text files Only
A3
print on A3 (big) paper
A4
print on A4 (ordinary) paper
simplex
print on one side
duplex
print on both sides ready for binding along the long edge
hduplex
print on both sides ready for binding along the short edge
f fontname
use specified font
2up
print 2 pages on one side of paper
This is a useful combination for printing mail messages.
2+
print 2up in portrait with header and line numbers
This is a useful combination for printing source code.
tlnn
set the text length of the page
portrait
print pages with left hand margin the long edge
landscape
print pages with left hand margin the short edge

Combinations that work well

TEXT FILES

Some of the more exotic options

rotate
print in reverse portrait or landscape mode
econoon
print with economy mode on.
econooff
print with economy mode off.
dpi1200pro
print more slowly but with better ( professional ) resolution.
For the full list of options for the HP Laserjet 5000 consult the unix man pages associated with HP printers 
man -M /opt/hpnp/man net_ljx000

Examples

What you want the command line
A4A3One sideBoth sides
xx lpr -dhp-3b filename
xx lpr -dhp-3b -o duplex filename
xx lpr -dhp-3b -o A3 filename
xx lpr -dhp-3b -o A3 -o duplex filename

This text is available on-line as
hp-3b.htm