8.2.4 Displaying Status for Printers

You can request printer status information for individual printers using the -p option to lpstat. This option shows whether the printer is active or idle, when it was enabled or disabled, and whether it is available to accept print requests.

To request status for all printers on a system, type the following:

$ lpstat -p

In the following example, two printers are idle, enabled, and available. If one of those printers had jobs in the print queue, those jobs would also be displayed.

$ lpstat -p
printer pinecone is idle. enabled since Wed Jan 2 18:20:22 PST
1991. available.
printer acorn is idle. enabled since Mon Mar 4 15:53:44 PST 1991.
available.
$

To request status for an individual printer by name, type the following:

$ lpstat -p printername

where printername is the name of the specific printer.