Emacs Printing

You are using emacs, you want to print and not use the default printer.

Setting the Printer Name from inside emacs

First way

To set the printer name variable in a running emacs:

M-x set-variable<cr>
printer-name<cr>
"galaxy"<cr>

where M-x is meta-x and <cr> is return. You might want to set ps-printer-name if you are using the ps-print* commands.

Second way

Or you can set the lpr-command (and/or ps-lpr-command) to /opt/damtpbin/guiprint which will let you select a printer and set options graphically.

Checking the resulting postscript

For each ps-print-... command there is a ps-spool-... command, which saves the resulting ps to an emacs buffer, which you can then examine/save/print as you like. e.g.

enter M-x (meta-X), and enter: ps-spool-buffer-with-faces

this will create a buffer called '*PostScript*' which you can switch to, save etc.

Possibly more practically you can tell ps-print-buffer* to save to a file by setting a prefix-argument (it will prompt for the filename), e.g. you would type something like:

C-u M-x ps-print-buffer-with-faces

it will prompt with:

Save PostScript to file: ...

you enter the filename and it will save it. Many interactive commands behave differently when given a 'prefix aregument' (with C-u).

[ C-char means Control-char, M-char means Meta-char, which under X will usually be Alt-char unless you have odd settings. ]

Further information in the emacs online manual

Last updated 17 August 2007.