The lpr utility submits print requests to a destination. lpr prints files (file) and associated information, collectively called a print request. If file is not specified, lpr assumes the standard input.

The print client commands locate destination information using the "printers" database in the name service switch. See nsswitch.conf(4), printers(4), and printers.conf(4) for details.

Print requests with more than 52 files specified will be truncated to 52 files. lpr displays a warning message.

The following options are supported:

-P destination

Prints file on a specific printer or class of printers(see lpadmin(1M)). Specify destination using atomic, POSIX-style (server:destination), or Federated Naming Service (FNS) (.../service/printer/...) names. See printers.conf(4) for information regarding the naming conventions for atomic and FNS names, and standards(5) for information regarding POSIX.

-# number

Prints a specific number of copies. Specify number as a positive integer. The default for number is 1.

-C class

Prints class as the job classification on the banner page of the output. Enclose class in double quotes if it contains blanks. If class is not specified, the name of the system (as returned by hostname) is printed as the job classification. See hostname(1).

-J job

Prints job as the job name on the banner page of the output. Enclose job in double quotes if it contains blanks. If job is not specified, file (or in the case of multiple files, the first file specified on the command line) is printed as the job name on the banner page of the output.

-T title

Prints a title on the page header of the output. Enclose title in double quotes if it contains blanks. The -T option is ignored unless it is specified with the -p filter option.

-i indent

Indents the output a specific number of SPACE characters. Use indent to indicate the number of SPACE characters to be indented. Specify indent as a positive integer. If the optional argument to indent is not specified, then eight SPACE characters is the default. The -i option is ignored unless it is specified with the -p filter option.

-1|-2|-3|-4 font

Mounts the specified font in the font position 1, 2, 3, or 4. Specify font as a valid font name.

-w cols

Prints file with pages of a specific width. cols indicates the number of columns wide. The -w option is ignored unless it is specified with the -p filter option.

-m

Sends mail after file has printed. See mail(1). By default, no mail is sent upon normal completion of a print request.

-h

Suppresses printing of the banner page of the output.

-s

Uses full pathnames (as opposed to symbolic links) to file rather than trying to copy them. This means file should not be modified or removed until it has completed printing. Option -s only prevents copies of local files from being made on the local machine. Option -s only works with specified files. If the lpr command is at the end of a pipeline, file is copied to the spool.

- filter_option

Notifies the print spooler that file is not a standard text file. Enables the spooling daemon to use the appropriate filters to print file.

filter_options offer a standard user interface. All filter options may not be available for, or applicable to, all printers.

Specify filter_option as a single character.

If filter_option is not specified and the printer can interpret PostScript\256, inserting `%!' as the first two characters of file causes file to be interpreted as PostScript.

The following filter options are supported:

p

Use pr to format the files. See pr(1).

l

Print control characters and suppress page breaks.

t

file contains troff (cat phototypesetter) binary data.

n

file contains ditroff data from device independent troff.

d

file contains tex data in DVI format from Stanford.

g

file contains standard plot data produced by plot(1B) routines.

v

file contains a raster image. printer must support an appropriate imaging model such as PostScript in order to print the image.

c

file contains data produced by cifplot.

f

Interprets the first character of each line as a standard FORTRAN carriage control character.

The following operand is supported:

file

The name of the file to be printed. Specify file as a pathname. If file is not specified, lpr uses the standard input.

See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of lpr when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2³¹ bytes).

The following exit values are returned:

0

Successful completion.

non-zero

An error occurred.

/var/spool/print/.seq

File containing the sequence numbers for job ID assignment.

/var/spool/print/[cd]f*

Spooling directories and files.

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

hostname(1), lp(1), lpc(1B), lpq(1B), lprm(1B), lpstat(1), mail(1), plot(1B), pr(1), troff(1), lpadmin(1M), nsswitch.conf(4), printers(4), printers.conf(4), attributes(5), largefile(5), standards(5)

lpr: destination |: unknown destination

destination was not found in the LP configuration database. Usually this is a typing mistake; however, it may indicate that the destination does not exist on the system. Use lpstat -p to display information about the status of the print service.

lpr is CSI-enabled except for the printer name.

Print jobs are assumed to contain one type of data. That type of data is either specified on the command line or autodetected (simple, PostScript) based on the contents of the first file in the job.