Checking Print Queues and the Status of Printers

With the lpstat and lpq commands, you can check print queues and the status of printers. These commands display the print server's queue and any local print requests on the print client that are waiting to be transferred to the print server.

One difference between these two commands is that the lpstat command parses the print queue to display the format you request. If lpstat can't parse a print queue in the requested format, it displays the queue in the format the print server used.