legacy-printer-app(1)

✨ legacy-printer-app — the manual, but make it cute ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the legacy-printer-app(1) page 💖 this is from the OpenPrinting girlies and it's literally the glow-up your dusty old printer drivers have been waiting for.

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🎀 NAME 🎀

legacy-printer-app — Legacy Printer Application 👑

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

legacy-printer-app [ SUB-COMMAND ] [ OPTIONS ] [ FILES ]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so like. legacy-printer-app is a Printer Application that can be run standalone or as a dedicated IPP Everywhere network service ✨ And what it does is iconic: it maps arbitrary classic CUPS drivers into the Printer Application format. no cap.

here's the situation, and it's giving drama: if on a system there's no classic installation (like DEB, RPM, ... packages, or installation from source) of CUPS 2.x or older — but instead CUPS 3.x or newer is used and/or the CUPS Snap — then claasic CUPS drivers are not supported any more, and printer drivers can only be provided by means of Printer Applications 😭

so legacy-printer-app goes on a little scavenger hunt 🔍 it finds classic CUPS drivers in the locations where they are usually installed for being found by the distribution's classic CUPS 2.x installation, typically:

• filters in /usr/lib/cups/filter
• backends in /usr/lib/cups/backend
• PPD files (and files generating PPDs) in /usr/share/ppd, /usr/share/cups/model/, /usr/share/cups/drv, and /usr/lib/cups/driver

then when you open the Printer Application's web interface at http://localhost:8000/, http://localhost:8001/, ... and click "Add Printer", printers get discovered and available classic drivers are offered 🫶 once you set up a printer it becomes available as an emulation of a driverless IPP printer, and the Printer Application uses the classically installed driver. and here's the best part: a classic installation of CUPS or any general CUPS filters (the cups-filters package) is not needed. periodt 💅

this way, classic CUPS drivers for which no equivalent Printer Application is available — especially manufacturer-supplied proprietary drivers for legacy printers — can be continued to be used with CUPS 3.x or the CUPS Snap 🌈

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👑 SUB-COMMANDS 👑

if no sub-command is specified, submit is assumed. (she's the default main character, we don't make the rules)

the following sub-commands are recognized by legacy-printer-app:

• add — Add a printer queue. 💖
• cancel — Cancel one or more print jobs. 🚫
• default — Get/Set the default printer queue. ⭐
• delete — Delete a printer queue. 🗑️
• devices — List connected printers. 🔌
• drivers — List the supported drivers. 🧚
• jobs — List pending print jobs. 📋
• modify — Modify a printer queue. 🔧
• options — List supported options. 🎛️
• printers — List the printer queues. 🖨️
• server — Start a server. 🌐
• shutdown — Shutdown a running server. 💀
• status — Show the status of a printer or all printers. 📊
• submit — Submit a file for printing. 📨

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

the following options are recognized by legacy-printer-app:

• -a — Cancel all jobs. (all of them, bestie, every last one 😭)
• -d PRINTER — Specify printer.
• -h HOST — Specify hostname.
• -j JOB-ID — Specify job ID.
• -m DRIVER-NAME — Specify driver.
• -n COPIES — Specify number of copies.
• -o NAME=VALUE — Specify option.
• -t TITLE — Specify job title.
• -u URI — Specify ipp: or ipps: printer/server.
• -v DEVICE-URI — Specify socket: or usb: device.

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• https://github.com/OpenPrinting/pappl-retrofit

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🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

Copyright © 2020 by Till Kamppeter. Copyright © 2020 by Michael R Sweet.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this was legacy-printer-app, manual page legacy-printer-app(1), dated 2023-08-17. she ate and left no crumbs 💅✨ go forth and print 💖