cupsfilter(8)

💅 cupsfilter(8) — the OpenPrinting glow-up 💅

okay bestie, so this is a page from the OpenPrinting manual, section 8 (that's the "system admin / daemon" girlies), and it's all about cupsfilter. heads up though: she's deprecated 🙈 keep reading, it's giving legacy icon energy.

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✨ NAME ✨

cupsfilter — convert a file to another format using cups filters (deprecated)

ngl the "(deprecated)" in the name is doing a lot of emotional labor here. she still works, she's just on her farewell tour 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

cupsfilter [ --list-filters ] [ -D ] [ -U user ] [ -c config-file ] [ -d
printer ] [ -e ] [ -i mime/type ] [ -j job-id[,N] ] [ -m mime/type ] [
-n copies ] [ -o name=value ] [ -p filename.ppd ] [ -t title ] [ -u ]
filename

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically cupsfilter is a front-end to the CUPS filter subsystem, and she lets you convert a file to a specific format, exactly like you'd printed it through CUPS. same pipeline, same drama, no printer required.

by default, cupsfilter generates a PDF file. and the converted file gets sent straight to standard output — so redirect it or it's just gonna vibe onto your terminal, bestie. 😭

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

• --list-filters — don't actually run the filters, just print the filters used to stdout. it's a vibe check, not a conversion. 🔍
• -D — delete the input file after conversion. bye bye original, hope you meant that 💀
• -U user — specifies the username passed to the filters. the default is the name of the current user.
• -c config-file — uses the named cups-files.conf configuration file. custom config, main character move.
• -d printer — uses information from the named printer.
• -e — use every filter from the PPD file. all of them. no filter left behind ✨
• -i mime/type — specifies the source file type. the default file type is guessed using the filename and contents of the file. she's intuitive like that.
• -j job-id[,N] — converts document N from the specified job. if N is omitted, document 1 is converted. one-based, periodt.
• -m mime/type — specifies the destination file type. the default file type is application/pdf. use printer/foo to convert to the printer format defined by the filters in the PPD file.
• -n copies — specifies the number of copies to generate.
• -o name=value — specifies options to pass to the CUPS filters.
• -p filename.ppd — specifies the PPD file to use.
• -t title — specifies the document title.
• -u — delete the PPD file after conversion.

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🫶 EXIT STATUS 🫶

cupsfilter returns a non-zero exit status on any error. so if the number ain't zero, something went sideways — check it, bestie 😤

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🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

all of the standard cups(1) environment variables affect the operation of cupsfilter. every single one of them. they're all in the group chat.

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /etc/cups/cups-files.conf
• /etc/cups/*.convs
• /etc/cups/*.types
• /usr/share/cups/mime/*.convs
• /usr/share/cups/mime/*.types

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⭐ NOTES ⭐

🚨 okay this is the important part, don't scroll past it: CUPS printer drivers, filters, and backends are deprecated and will no longer be supported in a future feature release of CUPS. printers that don't support IPP can be supported using applications such as ippeveprinter(1).

and also — and this one's lowkey spicy — unlike when printing, filters run using the cupsfilter command use the current user and security session. this may result in different output or unexpected behavior. so it's not a 1:1 replica of the printing experience, no cap. 🙈

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🔥 EXAMPLE 🔥

the following command will generate a PDF preview of job 42 for a printer named "myprinter" and save it to a file named "preview.pdf":

cupsfilter -m application/pdf -d myprinter -j 42 >preview.pdf

ate that. no crumbs. 👑

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• cups(1)
• cupsd.conf(5)
• filter(7)
• mime.convs(7)
• mime.types(7)
• CUPS Online Help (http://localhost:631/help)

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright © 2020-2024 by OpenPrinting.

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okay that's the whole page, bestie!! this was cupsfilter(8) from the CUPS manual, dated 2021-02-28 — love her, miss her, she's deprecated but she ATE. mwah 💋🦋✨