[OS X TeX] print via engine

[Michael Williams]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 11:30:49AM -0500, Chris Goedde wrote:
> If the printer is a postscript printer, then you could (probably, not
> tested) just use lpr directly from the shell script. See 'man lpr'
> for details.

lpr on OS X (or any CUPS-based system) works whether or not the printer
has Postscript support built in. On such systems, lpr is actually a
front end that emulates the behaviour of the original lpr command (i.e.
takes plain text or Postscript input). However the actual passing on of
the print commands to the printer are piped through CUPS, which can
print to non-Postscript printers just fine.

Try it by setting your inkjet (or other known non-Postscript printer) as
your default in Printer Setup Utility, then using lpr on a Postscript or
text file.

I know this because I have no trouble printing from a2ps or lpr on OS
X to my very, very cheap Samsung SCX-4200, which, at £100 for a
monochrome laser printer with a built in scanner, certainly does not
have Postscript processing built in! For anyone looking for a cheap,
quickish monochrome multifunction device with perfectly good OS X
support, you could do far worse.

-- Mike

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