Printable File Types

The following file types can be sent to the printers.

• ASCII
  That is, plain text files. If you can read the file by typing
  "more filename" at the prompt, then it will probably print without
  problems.
• Postscript
  Postscript is a "display language" used to describe how a
  page looks to the printer. It's the standard output language for most
  newer unix applications that print graphics (like Netscape).

Converting Files to Postscript

If your file is not in ASCII or postscript format, you'll need to convert it to postscript. Below, are the commands used to convert some common file formats (e.g., PDF, man, DVI, text) to postscript.

• PDF (Adobe's Portable Document Format)
  % pdf2ps input.pdf myfile.ps
  
• man (the file format used for manual pages)
  % groff -Tps filename > myfile.ps
  
• DVI (used by the TeX formatting system)
  % dvips myfile.dvi
  (automatically produces myfile.ps)
  
• text (enscript)
  Why would you want to convert text? With enscript, you can print multiple
  columns per page, and you can add page numbers and other header information. These options are both useful for source code or large documents.
  % enscript -pmyfile.ps myfile.txt