Printing at the Econometrics Lab

These are simple instructions to handle printing problems. The lab has a Hewlett-Packard 4 M Plus laser printer.

Basic rules

• Print jobs can only be sent from a valid account in ragnar.
• Please be moderate with the use of the printer. So far we are not imposing any restrictions on printer usage though for administrative purposes we check the origin and size of print jobs regularly. We will be forced to modify the free access policy if we note any abusive use. We keep track of printer usage with the command ljusage. This command will generate a table that summarizes number of pages printer for every user.
• If you experience any problem, do not turn off the printer. Report the problem to the Lab consultant.

Sending print jobs

• In order to print a file called filename, at the unix prompt type: lp [filename]
  The file has to be in a printable format , either ASCII or postscript.

Checking printer queue status and stopping print jobs

• Print jobs are directly sent to a print queue which spools print jobs. You can check the status of this queue with the lpq command in unix
• If you want to remove a print job fro the queue, first check the status of the queue (using the lpq command described above) and take note of the job number assigned to your print job. Then execute:
  
  lprm #
  
  where # is the number of the print job. You cannot remove print jobs sent by other users. Type man lprm for more help on this command.

Clearing printer memory and stopping print jobs from the printer.

• First press on line to take the printer offline. The printer stops receiving data.
• When the display reads 00 offline, hold down Shift and press Reset to clear any remaining pages in the printer's memory. Be sure that your print jobs was removed from the print queue in ragnar.

Toner and paper

• Please report to the Lab consultant any toner low message or if we need more paper.

Reducing printing cost: multi-page printing

• One of the easiest way of reducing printing cost is to print your document in a two-page format (i.e to make two pages of your document fit into one printer page). To do this you can use the following command:

psnup -2 [original file] > [new file]

This will take your original postscript file and transform it into a two-page format postscript file. You can then print this new file with the usual lp command.

• For larger files, professor Koenker suggests you can use the following commands:

psbook -s[#] [original file] | psnup -2 > [new file]

This will take your original postscript file and create "signatures" of  [#] pages in length that then are saved as a multiple-page new file that can be printed to create book-style pages that can be folded into a nice little booklet.