How to Print a File or a Mail Message on a UCSD Computer Lab Line Printer

Task: you have a message in your mail and you want to print it on a line printer in a terminal lab at UCSD.

If you simply wish to print a file, perhaps your fieldnotes, skip to the instructions for printing a file.

Important Note: For your own safety and peace of mind, do not print to terminal lab line printers unless you are presently working in that lab. Printouts send to remote terminal labs have a bad habit of walking off on their own, requiring you to print them all over again. Save a tree, be present in the lab in which you are printing.

The steps in this process are:

1. Login to your account
2. Get into your mail
3. Save the appropriate message(s) into a distinct file
4. Send that file to a printer.

The Mail End

The mail (aka /usr/ucb/Mail or /usr/bin/mailx) or elm programs

In mail or elm the command to save a message into a file is:

? s filename
(where "filename" contains only letters, numbers, and periods).

Exit the mail program.

Your file(s) will be in your login directory.

Pine

To save a message to a file in pine, you need two commands: the "O" (oh, not zero) command brings up a sub-menu which offers the "S" command (for "save"). Once again, your file needs to have a Unix-legit filename:
(where "filename" contains only letters, numbers, and periods).

Exit pine

Now you have to change directories to the "mail" dir with the command:

% cd mail

Instructions for Printing a File

To print a file, you first must know the name of the file. If you do not remember your filename, use the "ls" command to list your files.

Assuming you have the filename committed to paper or memory, goto the printer you wish to use and get the name of the printer. (It will usually be the room name, e.g., gh1260a or apm2337)

Send your file to the printer with the command:

% lp -dprintername filename

For example, if I am trying to print a file called "fieldnotes.961204" and I am in Gailbraith Hall, Room 1260, I would use the command:

% lp -dgh1260a fieldnotes.961204
(NOTE: there is no line space between the -d and the gh1260a parts of that command)

Printing to the "Site" Printer There is one exception to printing to a printer in the same room - printing to the "site" printer. If you omit the printer destination (the -dprintername) part of the above command, your file will be printed on the printer in the machine room in AP&M. This is useful if you are in a terminal lab or at home and cannot get to a line printer to pick up your files.

Files sent to the site printer are put in pigeon-holes in the West end of AP&M. It normally takes the operators about 15 or 20 minutes to take files from the printer and sort them into the pigeon-holes, so don't charge over there immediately after sending a file and expect your stuff to be there.

(c)Copyright 1985, 1996 by Bruce Jones

1. Sections used are reproduced entirely and without alteration
2. The following page footer is reproduced on each page:
   BJ's UNIX Primer - (c) Bruce Jones - 1985, 1996
3. Full credit is noted somewhere in the reproduction

Bruce Jones 			Department of Communication
bjones@ucsd.edu			University of California, San Diego
(619) 534-0417/4410		9500 Gilman Drive
FAX (619) 534-7315		La Jolla, Ca. 92093-0503

This page last updated on: Feb 3 1997