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# Printer and Plotter Setup

To print or plot your drawings, SISCAD-P offers several device drivers. These drivers can be divided into 3 categories:

- Direct drivers for different types of printers - (`met2bit`)
- PostScript drivers for PostScript printers - (`met2ps`)
- Plotter drivers for different types of plotters - (`met2hpgl`)

The configuration of the corresponding drivers will be made in the file plotstr.sys in your valid `sys`-directory.
This file describes which device is available to the SISCAD-P user and which command is used to output the data.
The following extract of `plotstr.sys` explains the format for these drivers:

>     # -----------------
>     # Format definition
>     # -----------------
>     #
>     # each driver section contains 5 lines
>     #
>     # 1. line: driver name showed in the SISCAD-P plot menu
>     #
>     # 2. line: defines whether the driver name  in the SISCAD-P plot menu
>     #          appears or not.
>     # 3. line: defines whether parameters are required or not
>     #
>     # 4. line: space separated driver parameters resp. dummy string if
>     #          no params required
>     # 5. line: printer queue name
>     #
>     # Example:
>     # --------
>     # LaserJet4    : driver name as shown in the SISCAD-P plot menu
>     # 1            : driver should appear in the SISCAD-P plot menu; 0=no 1=yes
>     # 1            : number of required parameters
>     # -dHPLJ4      : required parameter
>     # DRUCKER      : printer queue name
>     #

Whether a special driver should be active or not, insert a 1 or 0 in the second line of corresponding driver section.
To transmit the data to the spool system, the shell script sislpr will be called as follows:

> `$cadexe/sislpr` PRINTER_QUEUE_NAME FILENAME

This command starts a printer job which is managed by the standard UNIX spool system.
The spool system must be configured in a way that the following printer queues should be available:

- DRUCKER - normal printer
- PSDRUCKER - PostScript printer
- PLOTTER - plotter

The package apsfilter from ANDREAS KLEMM allows you to easy configure your `lpr` spool system. After configuring the spool system with this package, you only need to make some simple changes in /etc/printcap to define queue names as required by SISCAD-P. The following examples shows the required changes:
Example (Changes to file `/etc/printcap`)

> before:

>                  lp|LN03 PostScript Laser:\
>                             :
>                             :
>                  raw|lp9|st800-a4-raw|st800 auto raw:\
>                             :
>                             :

> afterwards:

>                  lp|PSDRUCKER|LN03 PostScript Laser:\
>                             :
>                             :
>                  raw|DRUCKER|st800-a4-raw|st800 auto raw:\
>                             :
>                             :

For further information about configuring your printer spool system have a look to the corresponding documentations (e.g. documentation of the apsfilter package, Printing-HOWTO etc.)