aps2file — printing to a file via apsfilter
Contents
Bugs
See apsfilter software center - http://www.apsfilter.org/ - for new versions, bugfixes and known bugs.
Please use the new tool apsfilter-bug(1) to release bug- or problem reports. It automatically presents
you a form in an editor window which asks you some standard questions. If you save and quit the editor
session, then this report is sent automatically via e-mail to the proper apsfilter mailinglist.
If apsfilter fails to print something or prints it in a way you wouldn't expect and you want to report an
apsfilter error then please save the debugging output of one print session using the new aps2file(1)
utility by typing aps2file-D-Zoptionsfile>/dev/null2>file.debug and including the debugging
output in the file file.debug into the edit session of the apsfilter-bug utility, so that it is included
into the mail to the apsfilter mailinglist.
Please note that you need to run /bin/sh (Bourne Shell), bash or a compatible shell, so that the above
mentioned output redirection works. Under C-shell (/bin/csh) or tcsh it would't work. If you don't know,
then simply make sure you use the Bournce shell by typing /bin/sh or bash, then you should have no
problems with redirection of stdout and stderr (> /dev/null 2> file.debug).
Description
With aps2file you can direct the printer data generated by apsfilter(1) into an arbitrary file without
the use of a spooler.
Documentation
See official apsfilter homepage
http://www.apsfilter.org/handbook.html Apsfilter Handbook including the Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ)
Files
/etc/printcap printer capability data base
/usr/share/apsfilter/bin/apsfilter apsfilter script
History
The aps2file manpage has been written by Michael Loßin <phallobst@web.de> and first appeared in apsfilter
V 7.1.0.
Debian Dec 19, 2001 APS2FILE(1)
Name
aps2file — printing to a file via apsfilter
Notes
aps2file only works correctly with entries in /etc/printcap that have been created by
/usr/share/apsfilter/SETUP.
Options
-h show help screen
-D enable debug mode
-Pqueue select a printer queue (different from the default one)
-Zoptions use apsfilter command line options (comma-separated list)
-ooutput direct data stream to output (default: stdout)
input read data from input (default: stdin)
Unlike printing with lpr(1), you can only use one input file at a time.
Using aps2file is also the recommended way to create a debugging log of a failed printing attempt. If you
include the -D flag, the apsfilter shell script will log every command and print it to stderr. To save
the output for inclusion into a bug report, you should therefore use a command of the sort
aps2file-D-o/dev/null[-P...][-Z...][input]2>log.txtSee Also
apsfilter(1), apsfilter-bug(1), apspreview(1), apsfilterrc(5), printcap(5)
Synopsis
aps2file [-D] [-Pqueue] [-Zoptions] [-ooutput] [input]
aps2file [-h]
User Forum
Please send questions to the official apsfilter help channel apsfilter-help@apsfilter.org. The above
section BUGS and the file HOWTO-BUGREPORTS tells you how to report bugs. If you want to know how to
troubleshoot your apsfilter installation, please read the manpage aps2file(1) and apsfilter-bug(1) as
well as the ApsfilterHandbook carefully.
