Displaying Status for Printers

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

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

$ lpstat -p

In the following example, two printers are idle, enabled, and available.

$ lpstat -p
printer jetprint is idle. enabled since Wed Nov  1 15:09:28 MST 2000. 
   available.
printer fastprint is idle. enabled since Wed Nov  1 15:09:46 MST 2000. 
   available.
$

If one of those printers had jobs in the print queue, those jobs would also be displayed.

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

$ lpstat -p printername

In this example, printername is the name of the specific printer.