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8. Getting Printing Software

Many prewritten filter packages (and other printer-related software) are available from SunSite. Such utilities as psutils, a2ps, mpage, dvitodvi, flpr, etc can all be found there.

8.1 Magicfilter

Magic filter is one of the fully-featured filter packages out there; it is designed to be installed in 10 minutes. I'm told it also includes special support for LPRng. 

Title:          magicfilter
Version:        1.1b
Entered-date:   04APR95
Description:    A customizable, extensible automatic printer filter.
                Lets you automatically detect and print just about any
                data type you can find a conversion utility for.  This
                filter is written in C and is controlled completely
                from an external printer configuration file.
                This version adds automagic creation of configuration
                files based on the installed software on your system,
                courtesy of GNU Autoconf.
                This version is a bug fix from 1.1/1.1a; filters for
                non-ASCII capable PostScript printers have been added.
Author:         H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Primary-site:   sunsite.unc.edu
                53000 /pub/Linux/system/printing/magicfilter-1.1b.tar.gz
Copying-policy: GPL

8.2 APS Filter

Another of the many magic filter packages is aps filter, by Andreas Klemm. The Linux Software Map entry goes something like this: 

Begin3
Title:          apsfilter
Version:        4.9.1
Entered-date:   Montag, 10. Juli 1995, 21:22:35 Uhr MET DST
Description:    magicfilter for lpd with auto filetype detection
Keywords:       lpd magicfilter aps apsfilter
Original-site:  sunsite.unc.edu
                /pub/Linux/system/printing/
                211KB aps-491.tgz
Platforms:      C-Compiler, gs Postscript emulator, pbmutils
Copying-policy: GPL
End
APS filter installs as an if filter for a print queue, and will translate from many common file types into your printer's command set. It understands, for example, text, PostScript, dvi, gif, and others.

8.3 EZ-Magic

EZ-Magic is another filter package, written in bash, available on sunsite. 

Title:          ez-magic printer filter
Version:        1.0.5
Entered-date:   January 26, 1997
Description:    ez-magic is a printer filter that supports 8 common file
                formats (txt,ps,gif,bmp,pcx,png,jpg,tif) for printing.
                It can print over a network (SMB), or to a local printer.
                Reads from a file, STDIN, or lpd. Simple to use and
                configure. Just one script file, no huge manuals and
                multibillion drivers. The only catch is that you need a
                few common helper programs like netpbm and ghostscript.
                Written in bash. Easy to add formats and code. Still more
                bugs than I have appendages, but less than the number of
                grams of fat in a hot dog. Pre-configured for HP DeskJet
                870Cse over network. Comparable to apsfilter and others.
Keywords:       magic filter, print, graphics, samba, network, smb,
                ghostscript, postscript, gif, jpg, simple
Author:         toby@eskimo.com (Toby Reed)
Maintained-by:  toby@eskimo.com (Toby Reed)
Primary-site:   http://www.eskimo.com/~toby/ez-magic-1.0.5.tar.gz
                         38 kb ez-magic-1.0.5.tar.gz
Alternate-site: sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/system/printing
                         38 kb ez-magic-1.0.5.tar.gz
Copying-policy: Copyrighted, full manipulation rights, with one or two
                restrictions.

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