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NAME
foomatic-rip - Universal print filter/RIP wrapper
SYNOPSIS
General Options:
foomatic-rip [-v] [-q] <mode-specific options>
Spooler-less printing filter:
foomatic-rip [-P <printer> | --ppd <ppdfile> ] [-J <jobtitle> ] [-o
<option>=<value> [...]] [<files>]
CUPS filter:
foomatic-rip <jobid> <user> <jobtitle> <numcopies> <options> [<file>]
DESCRIPTION
foomatic-rip is a universal print filter which can be used as CUPS
filter or stand-alone for spooler-less, direct printing. It has the
following features:
[bu]
It translates PostScript and PDF from standard input or a file to
the printer's native language on standard output.
[bu]
The translation is done with an external renderer, usually
Ghostscript (gs(1)). If no translation is needed (PostScript
printer) the renderer's command line reduces to cat(1). The way how
this translation is done is described in a PPD file.
[bu]
Printer capabilities, how to handle user options, and how to build
the renderer command line is always described by PPD files, these
PPD files usually come from Foomatic or can be the ones supplied by
the manufacturers of PostScript printers. The PPD files are the same
for both CUPS and direct printing.
[bu]
foomatic-rip works with CUPS and for direct printing (without
spooler), where the latter is mainly for testing and debugging. The
mode is selected by the command line options and environment
variables which are supplied to foomatic-rip.
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[bu]
foomatic-rip does not only apply option settings supplied by the
user through the command line of the printing command, but also
searches the entire job for embedded option settings (only
PostScript jobs). Here not only settings which affect the whole job
are taken into account, but also settings in the page headers, which
are only valid for the page where they were found, so applications
which produce PostScript code with page-specific printer option
settings are fully supported.
DIRECT, SPOOLER-LESS PRINTING
Options
-v verbose mode for debugging. WARNING: This will create a
file in /tmp that contains the debugging information. This
opens a security loophole and should not be used in
production.
-q quiet mode - minimal information output
-P <printer>
<printer> is the configured printer which should be used for
this job.
--ppd <ppdfile>
The PPD file <ppdfile> should be applied for processing this
job.
-o <option>=<value>
Option settings for this job.
<files> The file(s) to be printed.
foomatic-rip will print from standard input unless at least one file
to be printed is specified on the command line. If your printer PPD
file is stored as /usr/local/etc/direct/<printer>.ppd or
~/.foomatic/direct/<printer>.ppd you can use it by simply specifying
"-P <printer>".
Put a line
*FoomaticRIPPostPipe: "| <command>"
into the PPD file, right after *PPD-Adobe: "4.3", where <command> is a
command into which you want to re-direct the output data. Due to the
restrictions of PPD files <, >, and " are not allowed in the
<command>, replace them as follows:
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Character Replacement
---------------------
< <
> >
" "
' '
& &
This way you can print directly to your printer, use
*FoomaticRIPPostPipe: "| cat > /dev/lp0"
or
*FoomaticRIPPostPipe: "| cat > /dev/usb/lp0"
for local parallel or USB printers. To make normal users able to print
this way add them to the group lp and make sure that the appropriate
printer device file /dev/... is group-writable for the lp group.
for a TCP/Socket/JetDirect printer with the host name printer
listening on port 9100 you need this:
*FoomaticRIPPostPipe: "| /usr/bin/nc -w 1 printer 9100"
Note the "-w 1" in the "nc" command line, it makes "nc" exiting
immediately after the data is transferred to the printer.
*FoomaticRIPPostPipe: "| rlpr -Plp@printserver"
directs your jobs to the LPD printer queue lp on the machine named
printserver.
See also http://www.openprinting.org/direct-doc.html
PRINTING WITH SPOOLER
See the documentation on the OpenPrinting Web site:
http://www.openprinting.org/
CONFIGURATION FILE
The file /usr/local/etc/cups/foomatic-rip.conf or if it is not
readable the file /usr/local/etc/foomatic/filter.conf is read whenever
foomatic-rip is executed. It allows to configure the behavior of
foomatic-rip as follows (lines beginning with # are comments and
therefore get ignored):
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debug: 0|1
Turns on (1) or off (0) the debug mode. This is equivalent
to supplying the --debug command line option. Default
setting is 0.
echo: [<path>/]<executable>
Sets the path to an echo(1) executable which supports -n.
gspath: [<path>/]<executable>
Sets the path to the Ghostscript (gs(1)) executable. To be
used if Ghostscript is at a non-standard location or if an
alternative Ghostscript should be used.
execpath: <path>[:<path>]...
Sets the $PATH variable to be used by foomatic-rip.
cupsfilterpath: <path>[:<path>]...
Sets the directories (colon-separated) in which foomatic-rip
searches for CUPS filters.
preferred_shell: [<path>/]<executable>
Sets the preferred shell to use when executing
FoomaticRIPCommandLine and friends. Several PPD files use
shell constructs that require a more modern shell like bash,
zsh, or ksh.
FILES
/usr/local/etc/cups/ppd/<printer>.ppd
/usr/local/etc/direct/<printer>.ppd
The PPD files of the currently defined printers
/usr/local/etc/cups/foomatic-rip.conf
/usr/local/etc/foomatic/filter.conf
Configuration file for foomatic-rip
EXIT STATUS
foomatic-rip returns 0 unless something unexpected happens.
AUTHOR
Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmail.com> with parts of Manfred
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Wassmanns's <manolo@NCC-1701.B.Shuttle.de> man pages for the Foomatic
2.0.x filters.
BUGS
None so far.
Please send bug reports to the OpenPrinting bug tracker:
http://bugs.linuxfoundation.org/
Use "OpenPrinting" as the product and "cups-filters" as the component.
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