System Administration Guide: Printing

Checking Printer Status

Many routine printer administration tasks require information about the status of the LP print service or a specific printer. For example, you can determine which printers are available for use. You can also examine the characteristics of those printers. You can use the lpstat command to find status information about the LP print service or a specific printer.

If a PPD file was used to create or modify a print queue, the specific PPD file is listed in the lpstat output. If a PPD file was not specified when the print queue was created, the PPD entry in the lpstat output is none.