lpforms(1M)
lpforms --
administer forms used with the LP print service
Synopsis
lpforms -f form-name options
lpforms -f form-name -A alert-type [-Q minutes] [-W requests]
Description
The lpforms command is used to administer the
use of preprinted forms, such as company
letterhead paper, with the LP print service.
A form is specified by its form-name.
Users may specify a form when
submitting a print request (see
lp(1)).
The argument all can be used instead of
form-name with either of
the command lines shown above.
The first command line allows
the administrator to add, change, and delete forms,
to list the attributes of an existing form, and to
allow and deny users access to particular forms.
The second command line is used to
establish the method by which the administrator is
alerted that the form form-name must be mounted on a printer.
With the first lpforms command line,
one of the following options must be used:
-F pathname-
to add or change form form-name,
as specified by the information in pathname
--
to add or change form form-name,
as specified by the information from standard input
-x-
to delete form form-name (this option must be used separately;
it may not be used with any other option)
-l-
to list the attributes of form form-name
Adding or changing a form
The -F pathname option is used to
add a new form, form-name, to the LP print service, or to change
the attributes of an existing form.
The form description is taken from
pathname
if the -F option is given,
or from the standard input if the - option is used.
One of these two options must be used to define or change a form.
pathname is the
pathname of a file that contains
all or any subset of
the following information about the form:
Page length: scaled-decimal-number1
Page width: scaled-decimal-number2
Number of pages: integer
Line pitch: scaled-decimal-number3
Character pitch: scaled-decimal-number4
Character set choice: character-set/print-wheel [mandatory]
Ribbon color: ribbon-color
Comment:
comment
Alignment pattern: [content-type]
content
The term ``scaled-decimal-number''
refers to a non-negative number
used to indicate a unit of size.
The type of unit is shown
by a ``trailing'' letter attached to the number.
Three types of scaled decimal numbers
can be used with the LP print service: numbers
that show sizes in centimeters
(marked with a trailing ``c'');
numbers that show sizes in inches
(marked with a trailing ``i'');
and numbers that show sizes in units appropriate to use
(without a trailing letter),
that is, lines, characters, lines per inch, or characters per inch.
Except for the last two lines, the above lines may appear
in any order.
The ``Comment'' and comment
items must appear in consecutive order
but may appear before the other items,
and the ``Alignment pattern''
and the content items
must appear in consecutive order at the end of the file.
Also, the comment item
may not contain a line that begins with any of the key
phrases above, unless the key phrase is
preceded with a ``>''.
Any leading ``>'' sign found in the
comment
will be removed when the comment is displayed.
Case distinctions in the key phrases are ignored.
When this command is issued,
the form specified by form-name
is added to the list of forms.
If the form already exists,
its description is changed to reflect the new information.
Once added,
a form is available for use in a print request,
except where access to the form has been restricted,
as described under the -u option.
A form may also be allowed to be used
on certain printers only.
A description of each form attribute is below:
``Page length'' and ``Page width''-
Before printing the content of a print request needing this form,
the generic interface program provided with
the LP print service will
initialize the physical printer to handle pages
scaled-decimal-number1
long, and
scaled-decimal-number2
wide using the printer type as a key into the
terminfo database.
The page length and page width will also be passed,
if possible,
to each filter used in a request needing this form.
``Number of pages''-
Each time the alignment pattern is printed,
the LP print service will attempt to truncate the
content
to a single form by,
if possible,
passing to each filter the page subset of
1-integer.
``Line pitch'' and ``Character pitch''-
Before printing the content of a print request needing this form,
the interface programs provided with the
LP print service will
initialize the physical printer to handle these pitches,
using the printer type as a key into the terminfo database.
Also, the pitches will be passed, if possible,
to each filter used in a request needing this form.
scaled-decimal-number3
is in lines per centimeter if a ``c'' is appended,
and lines per inch otherwise;
similarly,
scaled-decimal-number4
is in characters per centimeter if a ``c'' is appended,
and characters per inch otherwise.
The character pitch can also be given as
elite (12 characters per inch),
pica (10 characters per inch),
or compressed (as many characters per inch as possible).
``Character set choice''-
When the LP print service alerts an administrator to mount this form,
it will also mention that the print wheel
print-wheel
should be used on those printers that take print wheels.
If printing with this form is to be done on a printer that has
selectable or loadable character sets instead of print wheels,
the interface programs provided with the
LP print service
will automatically select or load the correct character set.
If mandatory is appended,
a user is not allowed to select a different character set for
use with the form;
otherwise,
the character set or print wheel named is a suggestion and
a default only.
``Ribbon color''-
When the LP print service alerts an administrator to mount this form,
it will also mention that the color of the ribbon should be
ribbon-color.
``Comment''-
The LP print service will display the
comment
unaltered when a user asks about this form
(see
lpstat(1)).
``Alignment pattern''-
When mounting this form
an administrator can ask for the
content
to be printed repeatedly,
as an aid in correctly positioning the preprinted form.
The optional
content-type
defines the type of printer for which
content
had been generated.
If
content-type
is not given, simple is assumed.
Note that the content
is stored as given,
and will be readable only by the user lp.
When an existing form is changed with this command,
items missing in the new information are left as they were.
When a new form is added with this command,
missing items will get the following defaults:
Page Length: 66
Page Width: 80
Number of Pages: 1
Line Pitch: 6
Character Pitch: 10
Character Set Choice: any
Ribbon Color: any
Deleting a form
The -x option is used to
delete the form
form-name from the LP
print service.
Listing form attributes
The -l option is used to
list the attributes of the existing form
form-name.
Because of the potentially sensitive nature of the alignment pattern,
only the administrator
can examine the form with this command.
Other people may use the lpstat command
to examine the non-sensitive part of the form description.
Allowing and denying access to a form
The
-u option, followed by the argument
allow:login-ID-list
or -u deny:login-ID-list
lets you
determine which users will be allowed
to specify a particular form with a print request.
This option can be used
with the -F or - option.
The login-ID-list argument
may include any or all of the following constructs:
login-ID-
a user on the local system
system-name!login-ID-
a user on system system-name
system-name!all-
all users on system system-name
all!login-ID-
a user on all systems
all-
all users on the local system
all!all-
all users on all systems
The default value of login-ID-list is all.
The LP print service keeps
two lists of users for each form:
an ``allow-list'' of people allowed to use the form,
and a ``deny-list'' of people that may not use the form.
-
if
allow-list
is present and
login-ID
is in it,
access is allowed
-
if only
deny-list
is present and
login-ID
is not in it,
access is allowed
-
if
login-ID
is in
deny-list,
access is denied
-
if neither
allow-list
or
deny-list
are present, access is denied
-
if both lists are present,
and
login-ID
is in neither, access is denied
-
if only
allow-list
is present
and
login-ID
is not in it,
access is denied
If the allow-list is not empty,
only the users in the list are allowed access to the form,
regardless of the contents of the deny-list.
If the allow-list is empty but the deny-list is not,
the users in the deny-list may not use the form
(but all others may use it).
All users can be denied access to a form
by specifying -f deny:all.
All users can be allowed access to a form
by specifying -f allow:all.
(This is the default.)
Setting an alert to mount a form
The -f form-name option
is used with the
-A alert-type option
to define an alert
to mount the form when there are queued jobs which need it.
If this option is not used to arrange alerting
for a form, no alert will be sent for that form.
The method by which the alert is sent
depends on the value of
the alert-type argument specified with the
-A option.
The alert types are the same as
those available with the -A option
to lpadmin: mail, write,
quiet, none,
shell-command,
and list.
See the description of -A
on
lpadmin(1M)
for details about each.
The message sent appears as follows:
The form form-name needs to be mounted
on the printer(s):
printer (integer1 requests).
integer2 print requests await this form.
Use the ribbon-color ribbon.
Use the print-wheel print wheel, if appropriate.
The printers listed are those that the administrator had
earlier specified were candidates for this form.
The number integer1 listed next to each printer
is the number of requests eligible for the printer.
The number integer2 shown after the list of printers
is the total number of requests awaiting the form.
It will be less than the sum of the other numbers if some requests can
be handled by more than one printer.
The
ribbon-color
and
print-wheel
are those specified in the form description.
The last line in the message is always sent,
even if none of the printers listed use print wheels,
because the administrator may choose to mount the form on a
printer that does use a print wheel.
Where any color ribbon or any print wheel can be used,
the statements above will read:
Use any ribbon.
Use any print-wheel.
If form-name is any,
the alerting defined in this command
applies to any form for which
an alert has not yet been defined.
If form-name is all,
the alerting defined in this command
applies to all forms.
If the -W
option is not given,
the default procedure is that
only one message will be sent
per need to mount the form.
Not specifying the -W option
is equivalent to specifying
-W once or -W 0.
If minutes is a number greater than 0,
an alert will be sent at intervals
specified by minutes.
If the -Q option is also given,
the alert will be sent when a certain number
(specified by the argument requests)
of print requests that need the form are waiting.
If the -Q option is not given,
or the value of requests is 1 or any
(which are both the default),
a message is sent as soon as
anyone submits a print request for the form
when it is not mounted.
Listing the current alert
The -f option, followed by the -A option
and the argument list
is used to list the type of alert that has been defined
for the specified form form-name.
No change is made to the alert.
If
form-name
is recognized by the LP print service,
one of the following lines is sent to the standard output,
depending on the type of alert for the form.
When requests requests are queued:
alert with shell-command every minutes minutes
When requests requests are queued:
write to user-name every minutes minutes
When requests requests are queued:
mail to user-name every minutes minutes
No alert
The phrase ``every minutes minutes'' is
replaced with ``once'' if
minutes
(-W minutes)
is 0.
Terminating an active alert
The -A quiet option is used to stop
messages for the current condition.
An administrator can use this option to temporarily stop
receiving further messages about a known problem.
Once the form has been mounted and then unmounted,
messages will again be sent when the number of print requests reaches
the threshold requests.
Removing an alert definition
No messages will be sent after the -A none option is used
until the -A option is given
again with a different
alert-type.
This can be used
to permanently stop further messages from being sent
as any existing alert definition for the form will be removed.
Files
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxlp-
language-specific message file (see LANG on
environ(5).)
References
lpadmin(1M),
terminfo(4)
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004