====== Printing from the command line ======

Any command output can be sent to the default printer simply by piping it to **lp** or **lpr**.

This will almost certainly result in very small margins (test close to the edges of the paper) and 10 characters per inch, 6 lines per inch, in portrait mode.

Sometimes you want to change these, which you can do by supplying options to the **lp** command, for example<code>ls -l | lp -o landscape</code>

Each option you supply **has to be prefixed by its own -o**.  Here are some reminders of some useful ones:

^ Option ^ Meaning ^ Example ^
| portrait | Print with the short side of the paper at the top | |
| landscape | Print with the long side of the paper at the top | |
| cpi=N | Set the number of characters per inch to N | cpi=15 |
| lpi=N | Set the number of lines per inch to N | lpi=8 |
| page-left=N | Set the left margin to N points (1/72 inch) | page-left=36 |
| page-right=N | Set the right margin to N points (1/72 inch) | page-right=36 |
| page-top=N | Set the top margin to N points (1/72 inch) | page-top=48 |
| page-bottom=N | Set the bottom margin to N points (1/72 inch) | page-bottom=48 |
| columns=N | Set the number of columns per page to N | columns=2 |
| number-up=N | Scale down and print N output pages on each paper page | number-up=4 |

So, if you wanted to print a file listing in landscape mode with three columns across the page, ½" margins all round, at 12 characters per inch and 8 lines per inch, you could use:<code>ls | lp -o landscape -o columns=3 -o page-left=36 -o page-right=36 -o page-top=36 -o page-bottom=36 -o lpi=8 -o cpi=12</code>

The **-d** option allows you to specify the destination device, and a seemingly useful facility for previewing the output before sending it to a real printer is **cups-pdf** (which is a Debian / Devuan package - see https://gist.github.com/aweijnitz/c9ac7a18880225f12bf0 for full setup instructions).  Therefore you should be able to preview a print job from the command line using:<code>ls | lp -o cpi=15 -o lpi=8 -o columns=4 -d cups-pdf</code>This will create a PDF in **~/PDF** (you can change this if you wish by editing **/etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf**).

On my machine the output is blank and I haven't yet worked out why.

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