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Portable text2eth0 printer?

Presently I use rPi to listen to text-to-speech, by transfering the PC generated *.wav files via a USBstik, to the battery-powered rPi.

Similarly, instead of finding some Windows-user, to print my text via their eth0 connection, I want to just plug my battery-powered rPi into the office ethernet that feeds the printer, and get the text on the USBstik printed.

The rPi will be hearderless: without any display + keyboard; like when it plays my text-to-speech files.

So then I'd need to find out the printer's IP? How do I do that? The 'one' user who may co-operate with my needs, would not know.

Perhaps the HP-printer's name is standard for the product, and available via the net? But no; since it must be able to share the ethN with other same-make printers?

What's the general syntax to drive the printer ?

== TIA.

Reply to
Unknown
Loading thread data ...

On Sat, 15 Mar 2014 11:47:07 +0000 (UTC), Unknown declaimed the following:

I don't know of any modern printer that responds to plain text anymore...

HP may still respond to PCL (printer control language) for layout purposes; higher end laser printers probably still support PostScript.

But for the most part, it seems they are all now driven by raw image data prepared on the sending host. Even my Nook HD+ using a third party printer utility had to download a formatting module to drive the networked Office Jet 8100.

Actually managing the network discovery? That's another protocol -- possibly:

formatting link
formatting link 

--
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN 
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
Reply to
Dennis Lee Bieber

On Sat, 15 Mar 2014 12:53:22 -0400, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote in :

Our LaserJets auto-detect plain text, PostScript(TM) and PCL. (That's a 1320, 4300, and 5550 from memory.) It's possible to do tricks such as

./myprog | lpr -P ljcol

--
Ivan Reid, School of Engineering & Design, _____________  CMS Collaboration, 
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Reply to
Ivan D. Reid

Another thing to look at would be Rendezvous, Apple's protocol for device discovery. They may have changed the name; it's been quite some time since I looked at it.

--
roger ivie 
rivie@ridgenet.net
Reply to
Roger Ivie

Apple use the name "Bonjour":

formatting link

But the more general name is "zero-conf", short for "zero-configuration networking":

formatting link

RFCs:

  • Multiast DNS:
    formatting link

  • DNS-Based Service Discovery:
    formatting link

An implementation for Linux & the BSDs is Avahi:

formatting link
formatting link

Best wishes,

// Christian

Reply to
Christian Brunschen

Install "cups" and enable remote configuration. then setup the printer on the rPi then you can print when away from the office and it will get queued until the printer is avalable.

perhaps... OTOH perhaps you need a special driver to make the printer work.

lpr < text-file

--
Neither the pheasant plucker, nor the pheasant plucker's son.
Reply to
Jasen Betts

Indeed, it's called "Bonjour" now. see wikipedia for history of the change.

--
Neither the pheasant plucker, nor the pheasant plucker's son.
Reply to
Jasen Betts

use cups and configure it to see the printer. It MAY be able to find out the actual printer IP address,]

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(in-ep-toc?-ra-cy) ? a system of government where the least capable to  
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members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are  
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Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

rubbishh., Mos5use postcr[pt etc except the noddy low level crap

ghostcript+ cups is what you need

--
Ineptocracy 

(in-ep-toc?-ra-cy) ? a system of government where the least capable to  
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the  
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are  
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a  
diminishing number of producers.
Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Avahi for Linux does the same thing:

formatting link 

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Reply to
Warren Oates

"officejet 8100" is a desktop inkjet, It doesn't even do PCL. postscript is right out.

you need the hp interface driver "hplip" too.

Ghostscript is slow to execute on the raspberry Pi, but inkjets are slow to print so slowness is probably not a big deal

--
Neither the pheasant plucker, nor the pheasant plucker's son.
Reply to
Jasen Betts

On 16 Mar 2014 00:39:16 GMT, Jasen Betts declaimed the following:

According to the spec sheet, it does do PCL 3 (though exactly where is unclear -- possibly the computer end driver can accept PCL files for rendering rather than sending them straight through for printer rendering)

--
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN 
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
Reply to
Dennis Lee Bieber

The CUPS internal workflow has been PDF only for the last few years. You likely have to jump through hoops to get plain text to make it past the USB port. The good thing about PDF is that it's a decent metafile container for bitmap and vector graphics, and maps quite nicely back to PostScript. It also handles font encoding well, which used to be a horror.

Ghostscript's not slow; printing to a first-gen PostScript printer was slow. 10+ minutes a page, if you didn't run out of VM.

To return to the OPs query: yes, investigate Avahi to auto-discover a printer. Will you be able to automatically print everything on the USB stick? We know too little about your network and your input files to say. Report back with your results; it sounds like fun.

If any of these printers are work centres, you can often find a USB port that will print PDFs from a memory stick directly.

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 Stewart C. Russell ? http://scruss.com/blog ? OpenPGP Key: EB265B06 
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Reply to
Stewart C. Russell

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