Printing in LaTeX
Basic printing:
To print a file my_paper.dvi - as produced by LaTeX - you typically use the command
dvips my_paper
which sends the output to the default printer (environment variable
PRINTER).
Choosing the printer:
If you want to use another printer, the command takes the standard
parameter -Pprinter_name as lpr does. The following commands
print the file my_paper.dvi on all known printers at LAMI/MANTRA:
- dvips -P klee my_paper
- dvips -P klee_one my_paper
- dvips -P miro my_paper
- dvips -P dilaser my_paper
- dvips -P mantra my_paper
- dvips -P picasso my_paper
- dvips -P renoir my_paper
- dvips -P vangogh my_paper
There are a couple of particularities on the way special printers are
handled:
- klee & klee_one: our main printer is capable of two-sided printing. Printing through dvips automatically prints on both sides of a page in 300 dpi. However, you can print one-sided 600 dpi through the printer klee_one.
- dilaser: the DI print server is capable of two-sided printing. Printing through dvips automatically prints on both sides of a page in 300 dpi.
- miro: this is the color printer at LAMI. dvips generates 600 dpi PS when sending to miro, but color documents will be 300 dpi.
- renoir: this is the 600dpi printer at LAMI. dvips generates 600dpi PS when sending to renoir.
Printing in a file:
You can also generate PS files with the -ooutput_file option:
dvips -o my_paper.ps my_paper
This may also be useful when the output file is too large for the
spool area. This is unfortunately often a problem on LAMI printers
such as mantra. If you get the message "Copy file is too large" or if
you suspect your PS file is above 1-1.5 Mbytes, follow the procedure
below:
lprm (if you already tried unsuccessfully to print)
dvips -o ~/my_paper.ps my_paper
rsh lamisun9
lpr -s ~/my_paper.ps
(be careful not to delete ~/my_paper.ps until the printout is
completed). This procedure is not typically not required for dilaser
but essential for other LAMI/MANTRA printers. If you think it too
complex, ask the LAMI system manager why... ;^)
Note that the file as generated above is a 300dpi file. If you intend
to print it on renoir, you must say that you want a 600dpi file:
dvips -o my_paper.ps -D 600 -Z my_paper
Printing on the DeskJet850C PCL Colour Printer:
If you wish to print slides on a PCL (i.e., non-PS) printer, you can
generate the appropriate binary file from the PS file obtained as
above. Once you have the PS file my_slides.ps, just convert it with
ps2pcl my_slides
It generates a file my_slides.pcl that should be sent as-is to the
printer. For this you can connect the printer to any PC, transfer the
file on the PC by ftp, and finally send the file from the MS-DOS shell
with
copy /b my_slides.pcl prn:
If anybody knows how to send the file directly through a Mac, please
let us know!
Printing ranges of pages:
There are several options to print ranges of pages. Basically there
are two ways to identify pages in a document: sequential numbering (1,
2, 3, etc.) and TeX numbering (the numbers displayed by LaTeX when
compiling, typically written on the document itself, shown by dvips
when converting, and in ghostview on the left margin).
You can print sequential pages 10 to 15 inclusive (from the tenth to
the fifteenth page from the beginning of the document, no matter if
the first page is numbered 0 or -1, for instance) with:
dvips -p10 -n6 my_paper
where -p specifies the page to begin printing and -n the
number of pages to print from there.
Otherwise you may print pages 10 to 15 of your document (the pages
with these numbers printed on it, which may be or may be not the same
as above) with
dvips -pp10-15 my_paper
For more details, read the manual of dvips.