Printing

A new and enhanced mp(1) print filter is available in the Solaris 8 environment that can print various input file formats including flat text files written inUTF-8. It uses TrueType and Type 1 scalable fonts and X11 bitmap fonts available on the Solaris system.

The output from the utility is standard PostScript, and can be sent to any PostScript printer.

Starting with the next release of the Solaris environment, xutops(1) will be obsolete.

To use the utility, type the following:

system% mp filename | lp

You can also use the utility as a filter, since the utility accepts stdin stream:

system% cat filename | mp | lp 

You can set the utility as a printing filter for a line printer. For example, the following command sequence tells the printer service LP that the printer lp1 accepts only mp format files. This command line also installs the printer lp1 on port /dev/ttya. See thelpadmin(1M) man page for more details.

system# lpadmin -p lp1 -v /dev/ttya -I MP
system# accept lp1
system# enable lp1

Using lpfilter(1M), you can add the utility for a filter as follows:

system# lpfilter -f filtername -F pathname 

The command tells LP that a converter (in this case, xutops) is available through the filter description file named pathname. The pathname can determined as follows:

Input types: simple 
Output types: MP
Command: /usr/bin/mp

The filter converts the default type file input to PostScript output using /usr/bin/mp.

To print a UTF-8 text file, use the following command

system% lp -T MP UTF-8-file

For more detail on mp(1), refer to the mp(1) man page.