There is a separate page about the printer setup on personal laptops.

The command 'printers' should give you a list of printers available to people at the observatory, and the location of them. After selecting the closest one to you (or one a little further in case you missed your workout) you can print (postscript!) files with the command 'lpr -P[your printer] myfile.ps'

Alternatively you can print !any! file with print myfile.anyextension. Print is a program that determines the type of file to be printed and then selects the appropriate program that can make postscript from the to-be-printed file.

When you think you wouldn't mind using your selected printer for a longer period you can set it as default with the command 'setenv PRINTER [your printer]'. This line, when inserted in the .settings file in your homedirectory, will allow you to print any postscript file with just 'print myfile.ps'.

To find out what the print status of your print job is you can type the command: lpq or lpq -P[your printer]. The ordering of the jobs is top is actively being printed, down in the list will be printer later.

If you by accident queued a wrong file in the printer queue you may remove your entries by having noted the job ID number and running the command: lprm [ID number], or lprm -P[your printer] [ID number].

Here are some more commands as examples:

Recently, we are experiencing lots of printer errors. These are usually caused by strange postscript or pdf files that fail to print. If you see a printer displaying such an error, first check if your print job is the first in the queue. if it is, it's probably your job that caused the error somehow, so DON'T sent the same job to all the other printers to see if it print there.

Often, these jobs are truncated due to lack of disk space, either in your user home disk quota, or in the /var partition of your computer where the job is spooled before printing. Check and solve these problems first, and chances are that the printing problem will be solved also.

Acrobat reader can cause such an error if “download Asian fonts” is checked in the print dialog, since we don't have those fonts, it will cause an incomplete print job to be sent to the printer.

For environmental, and financial, reasons you are encouraged (read urged) to use the double-sided printers for your normal printing jobs. On most printers and copiers, this will be the default already.

When printing drafts you can also use the program 'psnup' to output two pages on one sheet to save even more paper. A working example is: 'cat somefile.ps | psnup -2 | lpr -P[your printer]' (2 pages on one) or (When you don't need glasses) 'cat somefile.ps | psnup -4 | lpr -P[your printer]' (4 pages on one)

The environment will thank you!

Note: printer names are case-sensitive!

These systems are not managed by the support team of the institute, although we handle the print queues and can solve minor problems with these devices.
If you experience any problems with them such as jams, out of toner or more complex errors, please do not hesitate to contact helpdesk-multifunctionals@UFB.leidenuniv.nl citing the location of the printer and its name/code which you will find on the printer itself.