mp(1) (man pages section 1: User Commands)

man pages section 1: User Commands

mp(1)

Name

mp– text to PDL (Page Description Language) pretty print filter

Synopsis

mp [-A4] [-C] [-D target_printer_name] [-F] [-L localename] 
     [-P target_spool_printer] [-PS] [-US] [-a] [-c chars] 
     [-d] [-e] [-ff] [-fp] [-l] [-ll] [-m] [-M] [-n] [-o] 
     [-p prologue] [-s subject] [-tm] [-ts] 
     [-u config_file_path] [-v] [-w words] [-z point_size] 
     [-?] [filename]...

Description

The mp program, when called without the -D or -P option, reads each filename in sequence and generates a prettified version of the contents in PostScript™ format, sent to standard output. If no filename argument is provided, mp reads the standard input. If the standard input is a terminal, input is terminated by an EOF signal, usually Control-d.

The -D and -P options require the target printer name as an argument and produce the Page Description Language (PDL) of the target printer. The -D option causes the PDL to output to stdout and the -P option causes the PDL to be directly spooled to the printer. In the absence of these options, mp will product default PostScript output.

The mp program accepts international text files of various Solaris locales and produces output which is proper for the specified locale. The output will also contain proper text layout. For instance, the output will contain bidirectional text rendering, and also shaping, since the complex text layout (CTL) is supported in mp.

Mail items, news articles, ordinary ASCII files, complete mail folders, and digests are all acceptable input formats for mp. The output format includes grayscale lozenges, or the outline of the same dimensions as the lozenges, containing banner information at the top and bottom of every page.

Options

The following options are supported:

-a: Formats the file as a news article. The top banner contains the text: "Article from newsgroup", where newsgroup is the first news group found on the “Newsgroups:” line.
-A4: Uses A4 paper size (8.26 x 11.69 inches).
-c chars: The maximum number of characters to extract from the gecos field of the user's /etc/passwd entry. The default is 18.
-C: Instead of using "\nFrom" to denote the start of new mail messages, mp will look for (and use) the value of the Content-Length: mail header. If the Content-Length doesn't take you to the next "\nFrom", then it is wrong, and mp falls back to looking for the next "\nFrom" in the mail folder.
-d: Formats the file as a digest.
-D target_printer_name: Produces the PDL for the target printer. Requires X Print Server connection. target_printer_name can be either printer_name@machine[:display_number] or just printer_name. In the first form, mp tries to connect to the X Print Server display machine[:display_number] with the target printer as printer_name.
-e: Assumes the ELM mail frontend intermediate file format. Used when printing messages from within ELM (using the "p" command), especially for printing tagged messages. This option must be specified in your ELM option setup.
-ff: Formats the file for use with a Filofax personal organizer.
-fp: Formats the file for use with a Franklin Planner personal organizer.
-F: Instead of printing who the mail article is for, the top header will contain who the mail article is from. A useful option for people with their own personal printer.
-l: Formats output in landscape mode. Two pages of text will be printed per sheet of paper.
-ll: Formats output in landscape mode. One page of text will be printed per sheet of paper. This is useful for printing files with longer than normal lines.
-L localename: Provides the locale of the file to be printed. If this command line option is not present, then mp looks for the MP_LANG environment variable. If that is not present, the LANG environment variable is used. If none of these options are present, mp tries to determine the locale it is running in. If it cannot determine the locale, mp assumes it is running in the C locale.
-m: Formats the file as a mail folder, printing multiple messages.
-M: Forces mp to use the mp.conf file for printing output even if a prolog.ps file exists for that locale. Useful when printing to non-native PostScript printers.
-n: Turns off the gray bars and associated information from header and footer. Used to get output similar to output of 'lp filename'.
-o: Formats the file as an ordinary ASCII file.
-p prologue: Employs the file prologue as the PostScript/Xprt prologue file, overriding any previously defined file names. This file specifies the format of the print output. For PostScript output, the prologue file will have a .ps extension. For Xprt clients (when the -D option is specified), this file will have an .xpr extension. These files are defined in the SUPPLIED PROLOGUE FILES section below.
-P target_spool_printer: Spools the PDL to the target printer. No output is sent to stdout. Requires X Print Server connection. target_spool_printer can be either printer_name@machine[:display_number] or just printer_name. In the first form, mp tries to connect to the display machine[:display_number] with the target printer as printer_name.
-PS: If the mail or digest message just has PostScript as the text of the message, this is normally just passed straight through. Specifying this option causes PostScript to be printed as text.
-s subject: Uses subject as the new subject for the printout. If you are printing ordinary ASCII files that have been specified on the command line, the subject will default to the name of each of these files.
-tm: Formats the file for use with the Time Manager personal organizer.
-ts: Formats the file for use with the Time/System International personal organizer.
-US: Uses US paper size (8.5 x 11 inches). This is the default paper size.
-u config_file_path: Specifies an alternate configuration file to the default file /usr/lib/lp/locale/locale_name/mp/mp.conf. The absolute file path name must be used.
-v: Prints the version number of this release of mp.
-w words: The maximum number of words to extract from the gecos field of the user's /etc/passwd entry. The default is 3.
-z point_size: Prints the output text in the point size specified by point_size. The internal default is 12 points for portrait printing and 9 points for landscape printing.
-?: Prints the usage line for mp. Notice that the ? character must be escaped if using csh(1).

Operands

The following operand is supported:

filename: The name of the file to be read.

Examples

The mp print filter can be used to print files in any locale that is installed in the user's machine.

Example 1 Printing Japanese text files

Japanese text files encoded in the euc codeset can be printed in any non-Japanese PostScript printers by entering:

example% mp -L ja_JP.eucJP -M ja_JP_eucJP.txt | lp

Here, the -L option specifies the locale and the -M option invokes the mp.conf configuration file instead of the default prolog.ps file. In the case of ja_JP.eucJP, both /usr/lib/lp/locale/ja_JP.eucJP/mp/mp.conf and /usr/openwin/lib/locale/ja_JP.eucJP/print/prolog.ps files are present. Therefore, the -M option is used to override the precedence of the default prolog.ps file. Using mp.conf as the configuration file makes it possible to print to any PostScript printer.

The encoding of the locale specifed by the -L option and that of the text file to be printed have to be the same. In the above Japanese file example, if the text file is encoded in Shift-JIS, use the following command, since the locale ja_JP.PCK is encoded in SJIS:

example% mp -L ja_JP.PCK -M SJIS.txt | lp

Example 2 Running in Xprt mode

If an X Print Server daemon (/usr/openwin/bin/Xprt) is running in any system in the network, mp can be invoked as follows, enabling it to output in any Page Description Language supported by Xprt (the default value of display_number is 2100):

example% setenv XPSERVERLIST "machine1[:display_number1] \
    machine2[:display_number2] machine3[:display_number3]"

example% setenv XPDISPLAY machine_name[:display_number]

Using the options -D printer_name[@machine[:display_number]] or -P printer_name[@machine[:display_number]] gives the greatest precedence and mp tries to connect to Xprt running on machine[:display_number] with printer_name. When not specified, the default display_number value is 2100. If this fails, printer_name is tried with an Xprt display obtained from the following logic. The following is also valid if you enter only -D printer_name or -P printer_name on the command line.

mp checks XPSERVERLIST for a list of space-separated Xprt servers until it finds one which supports the printer_name argument. If none is found, mp checks the XPDISPLAY environment variable, which is of the form machine[:display_number]. If that is also not set or not valid, mp tries to connect to the default display, :2100. If that is also not successful, mp exits with an error message.

To pipe the data to the target printer when XPSERVERLIST or XPDISPLAY is set, enter:

example% mp -D printer_name -L ja_JP.eucJP \
    -M ja_JP_eucJP.txt | lp -d printer_name

For direct spooling when working in Xprt client mode, use the -P option:

example% mp -P printer_name -L ja_JP.eucJP -M ja_JP_eucJP.txt

Example 3 Turning off the header and footer

Use the -n option to turn off the mp header and footer:

example% mp -n mytext.txt | lp

Example 4 Printing long text lines

Use the -ll option to print text files with longer than 80 column lines in landscape mode:

example% mp -ll mytext.txt | lp

Example 5 Specifying print point size

Use the -z option to specify any point size, in this case, 20 points:

example% mp -z 20 mytext.txt | lp

Environment Variables

XPSERVERLIST

If the arguments to -D or -P is of the form printer_name@machine[:display_number], XPSERVERLIST is used only if the machine[:display_number] does not support printer_name.

XPSERVERLIST contains a space-separated list of Xprt displays to which to connect the printer. mp goes through the list sequentially to get an Xprt server that can support the given printer, exiting at the first instance where mp finds a display to which to connect. If this is not set, the environment variable XPDISPLAY is used instead.

XPDISPLAY

If the -D or -P option is specified in the command line with just the printer_name argument and no XPSERVERLIST variable is set in the environment, the XPDISPLAY variable is used to determine the machine[:display_number] running the X Print Server to connect the client. If XPDISPLAY is also not set, the print server startup script starts an Xprt server at port 2100 of the machine in which the client is running. The script terminates the print server once the job is over. If XPDISPLAY is set, the mp client tries to contact the print server running at XPDISPLAY. In this case, no attempt is made to start the server if it is not running.

MP_PROLOGUE

Used to determine the directory where the page formatting files (.xpr or .ps) are kept. These files determine page decorations, number of logical pages per physical page, landscape or portrait format, and so forth. In the absence of MP_PROLOGUE, the default location of the directory is /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp.

MP_LANG LANG

If neither of the -D or -P options is specified, a prologue file is prepended to the output to be printed. The prologue file is called /usr/openwin/lib/locale/localename/print/prolog.ps or /usr/lib/lp/locale/localename/mp/prolog.ps, where localename is the value of the MP_LANG or LANG environment variable, if present. If both variables are present, the file /usr/openwin/lib/locale/localename/print/prolog.ps is given preference due to backward compatibility reasons. If either of these files are not present, and the -D option is not specified, a configuration file of the locale called /usr/lib/lp/locale/localename/mp/mp.conf is used as the source of the configuration information that substitutes the prologue information for printing. The presence of prolog.ps disables mp.conf for backward compatibility.

Exit Status

The following exit values are returned:

0: Successful completion.
1: An error occurred.

SUPPLIED PROLOGUE FILES

The following prologue files are provided. Files with .ps extensions are for the PostScript output. Files with .xpr extensions are for the Print Server client. .xpr files are created for 300dpi printers and will scale to other resolution values.

mp.common.ps: Common prologue file for all other .ps files in this directory.
mp.pro.ps mp.pro.xpr: Used by default.
mp.pro.ff.ps mp.pro.ff.xpr: Used if the -ff option is in effect.
mp.pro.fp.ps mp.pro.fp.xpr: Used if the -fp option is in effect.
mp.pro.tm.ps mp.pro.tm.xpr: Used if the -tm option is in effect.
mp.pro.ts.ps mp.pro.ts.xpr: Used if the -ts option is in effect.
mp.pro.alt.ps mp.pro.alt.xpr: An alternative modification of the default prologue file which outputs the page number in the right corner of the bottom banner.
mp.pro.l.ps mp.pro.l.xpr: Prologue file used for landscape outputs.
mp.pro.ll.ps mp.pro.ll.xpr: Prologue file used for landscape outputs, when printing files with longer than normal lines.
mp.pro.altl.ps mp.pro.altl.xpr: Alternate prologue file used for landscape outputs.

Files

.cshrc: Initialization file for csh(1).
.mailrc: Initialization file for mail(1).
/usr/bin/mp: Executable.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.conf: Default configuration file.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.common.ps: Common prologue file for all other .ps files in this directory. Not for .xpr files.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.xpr: Default prologue files for mail printing.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.l.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.l.xpr: Default prologue files for landscape format.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.ll.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.ll.xpr: Default prologue files for landscape format with one column per page. Useful when printing files with long lines.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.altl.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.altl.xpr: Alternate prologue files for landscape format.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.alt.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.alt.xpr: Alternative "default" prologue files. Insert page numbers in the bottom right corner of each page.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.ff.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.ff.xpr: Default prologue files for Filofax format.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.fp.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.fp.xpr: Default prologue files for Franklin Planner format.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.tm.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.tm.xpr: Default prologue files for Time Manager format.
/usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.ts.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/C/mp/mp.pro.ts.xpr: Default prologue files for Time/System International format.
/usr/openwin/lib/locale/localename/print/prolog.ps /usr/lib/lp/locale/localename/mp/prolog.ps: Default locale-specific prologued file as an alternative to the mp.conf file. See ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES for more detail on the relationship.

The structure and format for mp.conf and .xpr files are documented in the International Language Environments Guide. Refer to this document if you need to use alternate fonts, including Printer Resident Fonts, or if you want to make changes to output format.

Attributes

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE	ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Availability	SUNWmp