FOOMATIC-RIP(1)						      FOOMATIC-RIP(1)



NAME
       foomatic-rip - Universal print filter/RIP wrapper

SYNOPSIS
   General Options:
       foomatic-rip [-v] [-q] [-d] 


   Spooler-less printing/CPS (older versions) filter:
       foomatic-rip [-P    |	--ppd	 ]  [-J  ]
       [-o  =  [...]]  []


   CUPS filter:
       foomatic-rip      []


   LPRng filter:
       foomatic-rip --lprng [-J][-Z=[,=[, ...]] 

       foomatic-rip  [-J][-Z=[,=[, ...]]
       (printcap :pdd=)

       foomatic-rip --ppd [-J] [-Z=[,=[, ...]]


   LPD/GNUlpr filter:
       foomatic-rip [-w ] [-l ] [-x ] [-y ] [-i ] [-c] [-n ] [-h ] [-j|-J |] 


   PPR RIP:
       foomatic-rip [= [...]]


   PPR interface:
       foomatic-rip           []


   PDQ driver file generation:
       foomatic-rip [--ppd ] [-o = [...]] --gen-
       pdq|--appendpdq|--genrawpdq|--appendrawpdq


   PDQ filter:
       foomatic-rip --pdq --ppd ] [-o = [...]] 


   CPS (newer versions) filter:
       foomatic-rip --cps -P  [-J ] [-o = [...]] []


DESCRIPTION
       foomatic-rip  is a universal print filter which works with every known
       free software printer spooler. It has the following features:


       ? It translates PostScript (and also other file formats) from standard
	 input to the printer's native language (usually put to standard out-
	 put).


       ? 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.


       ? Printer  capabilities,	 how to handle user options, and how to build
	 the renderer command line is always described by  PPD	files,	these
	 PPD  files can come from Foomatic or can be the ones supplied by the
	 manufacturers of PostScript printers. The PPD files are the same for
	 all spoolers.


       ? foomatic-rip  works  with  every  known  spooler  (CUPS, LPRng, LPD,
	 GNUlpr, PPR, PDQ, CPS, and without  spooler).	It  auto-detects  the
	 spooler  from	which  it  was called by the command line options and
	 environment variables which were supplied by the spooler.


       ? Non-PostScript files are translated to PostScript  before  they  are
	 passed	  to   the   renderer.	This  is  usually  done	 by  a2ps(1),
	 enscript(1), or mpage(1). foomatic-rip auto-detects which program is
	 installed, but manual configuration is also possible.


       ? 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 affectimg 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.


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  produc-
		 tion.


       -q	 quiet mode - minimal information output


       -d	 identical  to	the  'opts' option, but option information is
		 left in text format.  This is useful for  running  foomatic-
		 rip  from  the	 command  line	to determine what the printer
		 option are.  The PPD file will need to	 be  specified	using
		 the --ppd option.


       -P 
		  is the configured printer which should be used for
		 this job.


       --ppd 
		 The PPD file  should be applied for processing this
		 job.

       -J 
		 The    will	be  printed in the head line of every
		 page of a plain text job.

       -o =
		 Option settings for this job, do

		 foomatic-rip -P  -o docs 

		 ( can be an arbitrary existing file, as .bashrc,	 will
		 not be printed) to print a list of available options for the
		 specified .

       	 The file(s) to be printed.


       foomatic-rip will print from standard input unless a file to print  is
       specified  on the command line.	If your printer PPD file is stored as
       /etc/foomatic/direct/.ppd or ~/.foomatic/direct/.ppd
       you can use it by simply specifying "-P ".

       Put a line

       *FoomaticRIPPostPipe: "| "

       into the PPD file, right after *PPD-Adobe: "4.3", where  is a
       command into which you wnat to re-direct the output data. Due  to  the
       restictions of PPD files <, >, and " are not allowed in the ,
       replace them as follows:


       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 tranferred 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.linuxprinting.org/direct-doc.html


PRINTING WITH SPOOLER
       See    the   documentation   on	 the   Linux   Printing	  Web	site:
       http://www.linuxprinting.org


FILES
       /etc/foomatic/cups/.ppd
       /etc/foomatic/lpd/.ppd
       /etc/foomatic/ppr/.ppd
       /etc/foomatic/pdq/.ppd
       /etc/foomatic/direct/.ppd

	       The PPD files of the currently defined printers


EXIT STATUS
       foomatic-rip returns 0 unless something unexpected happens.

AUTHOR
       Till  Kamppeter	  with	 parts	 of   Manfred
       Wassmanns's   man pages for the Foomatic
       2.0.x filters.

BUGS
       None so far.

       Please send bug reports to foomatic-devel@linuxprinting.org.



Foomatic Project		  2002-11-26		      FOOMATIC-RIP(1)

UNIX/Linux commands referenced on this page:

1. file
2. which
3. free
4. as
5. replace
6. cat
7. make
8. users
9. lp
10. host
11. nc
12. man