[Tfug] Printing problem

[Claude Rubinson]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 02:19:41PM -0700, Claude Rubinson wrote:
> 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

Some of the above is incorrect.  The man page is a little on the terse
side, and I misinterpreted some of it.  Some clarification:

First, to query for printer-specific options and current settings, use

    $ lpoptions -p $printer -l

Second, it doesn't appear to be that lpoptions defaults to A4.
Rather, the default paper size can vary from printer to printer.  I
guess it must be the driver that sets the default?

Third, you don't use -d to set options, which sets your default
printer, but -p.

Don't forget that this all will only be read by lp/lpr.  You'll also
need to set your printer options in CUPS proper.

I really, really miss lpr.

C.