lp options for hp4250 printer

[Buz Dreyer]

I am trying to interpret the man net_lj4250 and net_ljx000 man pages to specify options on th elp command. The descriptions are very simplistic. Does anyone know of a more thorough explanation of terms like height vs hsi, lpi vs vsi, cs versus type, etc.? I tried many of the options, but the result is a time-consumming, confusioning, and incomplete process. Surely there is a better source that could describe how the various options interact with each other.

TIA

[TwoProc · Accepted solution]

I usually just read the file interface command file itself at:

/var/spool/lp/model/

[Bill Hassell]

The reason that the options are confusing is that there are several ways to layout a page on a laser printer. You are guaranteed that hsi and vsi will work as described, but lpi is a line printer view of a raster device. lpi only has meaning when you take into account the physical dimensions of the printable area and the font dimensions along with font leading (the space between lines). The options for lp in the man pages are designed only for plain ASCII files and yes, you have a very time-consuming task to layout page dimensions that match a particular report format. If you look at the docs for the PCL language, you'll understand the details:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/bpl13210/bpl13210.pdf
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/bpl13211/bpl13211.pdf

[Buz Dreyer]

UPDATE:
Using John's suggestion of looking in the directory /var/spool/lp/model/, I was puzzled that no hp4250- nor any hp4000-oriented file appears except for a series of "laserjet*" scripts. Upon grep scanning the entire /var/spool/lp/ directory, I found this file /var/spool/lp/interface/model.orig/test (though it has the dubious name of "test") which seemed to have some pertinent information.

Thanks everyone.

[Bill Hassell]

> Using John's suggestion of looking in the directory /var/spool/lp/model/, I was puzzled that no hp4250- nor any hp4000-oriented file appears except for a series of "laserjet*" scripts.

Quite normal. The core HP-UX software stopped supplying new printer model scripts more than 10 years ago. The scripts in these directories are designed for RS-232 serial and Centronics-style parallel printers. Since the majority of printers are network based, the printer division makes modern scripts available as needed:

http://www.hp.com/pond/modelscripts/index2.html

But despite these newer scripts, all HP laserjet printers made in the last 10 years can use the same network script: net_ljx000 and the man page covers all the useful options.

> Upon grep scanning the entire /var/spool/lp/ directory, I found this file /var/spool/lp/interface/model.orig/test (though it has the dubious name of "test") which seemed to have some pertinent information.

This is an active printer script. The way printer scripts are installed is that they are copied from the model directory (or for JetDirect network printers, the /opt/hpnpl/sh directory) and renamed for the print queue being created. So the "test" script is really a copy of a script in one of those two directories.

If you want a list of the options printer out, use this command:

lp -ooptions -dmyprinter /etc/issue

but better yet, use the man page for the script: man net_ljx000. The script will identify itself in the first few lines of comments.