[Tfug] Printing problem

[Claude Rubinson]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 04:15:27PM -0700, Daniel Duerr wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Am having some problems with my system defaulting to A4 paper even
> when explicitly told not to.  Some quick googling turned up a couple
> suggestions for fixing this: system settings, program settings, and
> using lp or lpr specifying the media size.  I've tried all of these
> and that hasn't fixed the problem.  The settings have changed--and
> remain changed, but when a job gets sent to the printer things
> revert to A4.

One week shy of a full year, and I think that I might have finally
figured this out.  When using lp/lpr with CUPS, check the output of
lpoptions -d $printer.  The lp/lpr bridge for CUPS reads lpoptions,
while CUPS proper does not.  So you can have different settings
depending up whether you print via lpr or a program that talks
directly to CUPS (e.g., Firefox, OpenOffice, and many of KDE and GNOME
programs).

lpoptions appears to default to A4 paper size.  Unfortunately, I don't
see how to set the defaults of lpoptions.  So you'll need to do

    # lpoptions -d $printer -o PaperSize=Letter

every time you install a new printer.  Executed as root will set the
default for all users; executed as a normal user will set the default
for that user.

Boy do I miss lpr.

Claude