Duplex Printing from the Command Line to an HP LaserJet Printer

My department has several HP LaserJet printers available to access within the department via LPR and SMB. However, if you are working from a personal laptop connected to the university wireless, those servers will not be available to you. Instead, you must print by piping your documents through SSH to a department server that does have access.

Unfortunately, doing duplex printing (i.e., two-sided printing) to an HP LaserJet printer from the command line is not trivial. So, using the GSview documentation as a guide, I put together a small bash script (available for download as hplj_duplex_print) that does the trick.

#!/bin/bash

declare -a input_file
if test $# -eq 0; then
    input_file=("-")
else
    input_file=("$@")
fi

( echo -e "\e%-12345X@PJL JOB"
  echo "@PJL ENTER LANGUAGE = POSTSCRIPT"
  echo "<< /Duplex true /Tumble false >> setpagedevice"
  gs -sDEVICE=psmono -sPAPERSIZE=letter -q -sOutputFile=- \
    -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH "${input_file[@]}"
  echo -e "\e%-12345X@PJL EOJ"
  echo -e "\e%12345X"
  ) | lp -d your_HP_printer_spool_name

You should replace the your_HP_printer_spool_name with your printer's spool name. You might want to tweak some of the options (details below), but the general structure will remain the same. The opening and closing escape sequences communicate to the HP LaserJet printer that a PostScript file is coming. Then the setpagedevice PostScript directive instructs the printer to use its duplex module.

Regarding tweaking:

• Again, make sure to change your_HP_printer_spool_name to your spool name. You may also want to change lp to lpr, but you will likely have to change -d to -P then.
• You may want to change the gs (GhostScript) options to suit your purposes. For example, you can change the psmono device to one of the other GhostScript devices like psgray or psrgb.
• The Tumble switch determines whether to do short-edge (true) or long-edge (false) duplex printing, and so this script defaults to the latter case. If you prefer vertical flipping, change the /Tumble false to /Tumble true. You might also make this a configurable command-line switch on the script.

LaTeX generated figures: Using preview instead of pst-eps

I've been using the pst-eps package when I want to generate EPS versions of coded graphics (e.g., graphics produced with PSTricks or the standard picture environment). From the pst-eps description:

Pst-eps is a PSTricks (pstricks)-based package for exporting PSTricks images ‘on the fly’ to encapsulated PostScript (EPS) image files, which can then be read into a document in the usual way.

By wrapping lines in a TeXtoEPS environment, you setup LaTeX to produce an image of the enclosed content with a tight bounding box. It works well, but you must use dvips -E to generate your EPS files with the proper bounding box. If you want to then generate a PDF, you have to use something like epstopdf (possibly with the EPSCrop GhostScript option) to do it. Additionally, there's a lot of overhead within the actual TeX source. In other words, it's not quite easy to use.

A BETTER OPTION: Today, I discovered the preview package, which is described with:

The package is a free-standing part of the preview-latex bundle. The package provides the support preview-latex needs, when it chooses the matter it will preview. The output may reasonably be expected to have other uses, as in html translators, etc.

This package appears to be a much nicer solution. You can use standard latex or pdflatex to compile. If you need to use latex but still want EPS or PDF outputs, you can use dvips and ps2pdf without any special options. Otherwise, the introduced preview environment works very similar to the old TeXtoEPS environment, but it requires less work to use and seems to apply to a broader class of content.

Here's an example that should not require anything fancy to build. If you don't have the amsmath package (you should), you can omit it and get rid of the gather* environment:

\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage{amsmath} % for gather*
\usepackage[active,  % Turns previewing on
    tightpage,       % Squeezes pages around previews
    textmath,        % Subjects textual math to a preview
    displaymath,     % Subjects math displays to preview
    floats           % Subjects floats to preview
    ]{preview}
    % There is a ``graphics'' option too that subjects
    % includegraphics to preview. If they are already in a
    % float, the ``floats'' option is sufficient.
\begin{document}

This text will NOT get printed.

\begin{equation}
        a = b
\end{equation}

The math following the colon gets printed: $x = 5$?

\begin{gather*}
        c = d
\end{gather*}

More text not printed.

\begin{preview}
        Page 2 is here (with tight border).
\end{preview}

You'll never see this text.

\begin{figure}
        \fbox{\fbox{\fbox{A figure that is printed}}}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

If the active option of preview is commented out, the file builds as if preview didn't exist. However, with it turned on, only the sections in preview environments get printed, and they each get put on a separate page with tight borders. Options like displaymath, textmath, and floats cause those types of content to get automatically wrapped with a preview environment.

Related posts:

• Bounding Boxes and EPS to PDF Conversion (in LaTeX)
• Most PostScript to PDF LaTeX Stuff: pst-pdf

Viewing man pages and text files in Skim

As discussed on the Skim wiki, it is possible to view man pages (and more) nicely formatted as a PDF in Skim.

If you use bash, try adding these lines to your .bashrc:

function skimcat () { cat $* | enscript -p - | open -f -a Skim; }
function manp () { man -t $* | open -f -a Skim; }

Alternatively, if you use tcsh, try adding these lines to your .cshrc:

alias skimcat="cat \!* | enscript -p - | open -f -a Skim"
alias manp="man -t \!* | open -f -a Skim"

Then you'll be able to do skimcat to cat files to Skim, and you'll be able to use manp to view man pages formatted in Skim.

NOTE: You can actually pipe anything that is PostScript (or PDF) formatted to Skim (via the open command shown above).

Script to open file in TeXniscope from command line

UPDATE 2: A much fancier version of this script is now available. It has options that make it easier to make TeXniscope update its file and position (via PDFSync or DVI source specials) in the background. The options are described briefly with the -h parameter.

UPDATE 1: A more mature version of this script is now available. It has a usage line. It checks for the existence of files. It tries to guess at a file name if the file does not exist. It's a little more convenient for the command-line user.

Here's a script to open a (PDF or PostScript) file in TeXniscope from the command line:

#!/bin/sh

[ "`echo $*|cut -c 1`" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="`pwd`"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"TeXniscope\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open file ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "refresh of the front document" \
-e "end tell";

or, alternatively,

#!/bin/bash

arguments="$*"
[ "${arguments:0:1}" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="$PWD"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"TeXniscope\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open file ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "refresh of the front document" \
-e "end tell";

Create an executable script called texniscope (e.g., /usr/local/bin/texniscope that is chmod'd 755) and try texniscope FILENAME where FILENAME is the name of the PDF or PostScript file that you want to open (be sure to include the file extension).

This allows you to use TeXniscope as a LaTeX document viewer in the VIM-LaTeX suite for Vim.

See also: Script to open file in Skim from command line

I use this for Vim/GVim; however, this script was inspired by code in an example in the TeXniscope help file for making TeXniscope work with iTeXMac. See the TeXniscope documentation for information on how to build a script that will let iTeXMac call TeXniscope from the command-line (and even make use of PDFSync [CTAN, iTM]).

Script to open file in Skim from command line

UPDATE 4: I have updated the script to accept command line options. A -h option gives help text describing the new usage. The options can prevent Skim from being activated or opening the file. This may be useful when trying to get Skim to update in the background.

UPDATE 3: I have updated the script to check for whether or not files exist, try to guess the right files if they don't, and bail if it fails. It also has support for PS and DVI files. Also fixed a problem with symlinked files.

UPDATE 2: I have generated a more mature version of this script that also has the ability to position Skim's PDF view at a position corresponding to a line of your TeX source (provided you built the PDF with pdfsync).

UPDATE 1: As discussed in this feature request and this Wiki entry, in iTeXMac, you can also try

Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/displayline %line "%pdffile" "%texfile"

which lets you make use of Skim's PDFSync support. The Wiki page includes instructions on using this in Emacs and TextMate as well. If you just want to open the file, you might try

Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/displayline 1 "%pdffile"

but this might break if the TEX file isn't available (so maybe you should still use the AppleScript below).

Here's a script to open a (PDF or PostScript) file in Skim from the command line:

#!/bin/sh

[ "`echo $*|cut -c 1`" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="`pwd`"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"Skim\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "revert front document" \
-e "end tell";

or, alternatively,

#!/bin/bash

arguments="$*"
[ "${arguments:0:1}" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="$PWD"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"Skim\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "revert front document" \
-e "end tell";

Create an executable script called skim (e.g., /usr/local/bin/skim that is chmod'd 755) and try skim FILENAME where FILENAME is the name of the PDF or PostScript file that you want to open (be sure to include the file extension).

This allows you to use Skim as a LaTeX document viewer in the VIM-LaTeX suite for Vim.

NOTE ABOUT revert: The line with revert in it requires Skim version 0.5 or higher. If you don't have that version of Skim (or you don't care about refreshing the document), then delete that line.

See also: Script to open file in TeXniscope from command line

I use this for Vim/GVim; however, this script was inspired by code in an example in the TeXniscope help file for making TeXniscope work with iTeXMac. See the TeXniscope documentation for information on how to build a script that will let iTeXMac call TeXniscope from the command-line (and even make use of PDFSync [CTAN, iTM]). It should be easy to modify the script they give there to call Skim instead of TeXniscope; use my script here as an example. Note that Skim's AppleScript also supports all of the goto line stuff of TeXniscope. However, the syntax is different; see the Skim AppleScript dictionary for more information.

Most PostScript to PDF LaTeX Stuff: pst-pdf

This is a follow-up to Bounding Boxes and EPS to PDF Conversion (in LaTeX).

There is also the LaTeX package pst-pdf, which uses the tool from the package ps4pdf.

This is a clever package with a more general approach to PS-to-PDF conversion than epstopdf. Rather than focusing only on the EPS graphics, it looks at the document as a whole. This means that it takes care of converting PSTricks (CTAN, TUG) graphics as well. It's a simple way of using pdflatex to produce a PDF while using constructs inside the document that are normally only allowed with latex (I assume that psfrag/psfragx will also work well with pst-pdf).

Of course, regardless of what you are producing, you should not be using epsfig anymore; use graphics and graphicx instead. In fact, epsfig isn't even supported anymore. There is a version included with the graphicx package for backwards compatibility.

For more information about including imported EPS files in LaTeX, see epslatex.pdf.

Related post:

• LaTeX generated figures: Using preview instead of pst-eps