Printing in the Math Department

There are two color printers located on the 2nd floor, 2 color printers on the 3rd floor, and 1 color printer on the 4th floor. If a printer is jammed, out of toner, or having other problems, please send an email to help@math.mit.edu.

Printers

We currently have 7 printers and 3 copiers available for public use throughout the department.

Printing FAQs

• Add "Xerox" copier to your Mac computer

  1. Navigate to support.xerox.com
  2. Type the model of your printer in the search field (AltaLink C8145) and complete your search.
  3. Select the Drivers and Downloads tab. If necessary, refine your search by selecting the model in the "Product/Model" box.
  4. Choose the search result beginning with Drivers and Downloads.
  5. Filter: click the Platform tab and choose your Mac's Operating System.
  6. Filter: Under Digital Front End, select Built-in Controller.
  7. Click Apply Filters
  8. Select the most recent macOS Print and Scan Driver Installer to download.
  9. Download the print driver.
  10. Double-click the downloaded Xerox Print Driver.dmg and then launch the Xerox Print Driver.pkg.
  11. Click Continue to move through the installation wizard.
  12. Click through the prompts to Agree to the terms and Install.
  13. When prompted, enter your computer's password.
  14. Click The single-printer icon (right). Type in the hostname of the desired Xerox printer (example) “stanlee.mit.edu”. Click Continue.
  15. Open System Preferences (either on your Dock or from the Apple Menu).
  16. Click Printers & Scanners.
  17. The Xerox printer should now be listed as an available printer.

• Add "Xerox" copier to your Windows computer

  1. Navigate to support.xerox.com and download Xerox Smart Start
  2. Launch XeroxSmartStart.exe
  3. Agree to the EULA.
  4. Xerox Smart Start will scan for printers.
  5. Select the printer you want to install and choose Advanced Install. When you select Advanced Install Xerox Smart Start will present you with a list of options:
     For Print System: Select Type 4
     For PDL: Select PCL 6
     Ignore the Scan driver option.
  6. If Xerox Smart Start did not find the printer, you want to select: Don’t See Your Printer.
  7. Enter the printer’s hostname (example) “stanlee.mit.edu” and select Continue. If Xerox Smart Start detects your printer it will take you to the Advanced Install screen.
  8. When the installation finishes Xerox Smart Start will display a confirmation screen. You can install another printer or exit by selecting Done. You also have the option to print a test page

• Add other printers to your Mac computer

  1. To add a department printer to your mac computer, first ensure that you are connected to the internet on the "MIT" or "MIT SECURE" network ("MIT GUEST" will not work).
  2. Open System Preferences / Printers and Scanners
  3. Click the "+" symbol to add a printer.
  4. Under "IP", enter "hopper.mit.edu" in the address box, and "printers/printer-name" in the Queue box. Example: Address: hopper.mit.edu | Queue: printers/claptrap
  5. Under "Protocol", choose "Internet Printing Protocol - IPP"
  6. Under "Use" select "Generic PostScript Printer"
  7. Click "Add" and the printer will be installed

  Note: If prompted, select "Duplex Printing Unit"

• Add other printers to your Windows computer

  1. To add a department printer to your Windows computer, first ensure that you are connected to the internet on the "MIT" or "MIT SECURE" network ("MIT GUEST" will not work).
  2. Open Control Panel / Devices and Printers
  3. Click "Add Printer" and select "The printer I want wasn't listed"
  4. Select "Select a shared printer by name"
  5. In the address box, type "http://hopper.mit.edu:631/printers/printer-name". Example: http://hopper.mit.edu:631/printers/claptrap
  6. Click "next"
  7. Click "Windows Update" to generate the list of drivers, may take a few minutes to propagate
  8. Select the driver that matches the model of printer you are trying to connect to.
  9. Click "OK"

• How do I print PostScript, dvi, PDF and text files?

  To print PostScript, PDF, and plaintext files,:

  lpr -P printername filename.ps

  To print dvi (dvi file is the result of LaTeX-ing a document):

  dvips filename.dvi

  If you wish to turn a dvi file into a PostScript file without printing:

  dvips filename.dvi -o filename.ps

  To print directly to a destination other than your default printer:

  dvips filename.dvi -f | lpr -P printername

• How do I see what jobs are ahead of me in the print queue?

  Use the lpq command to see what jobs are ahead of yours.

  lpq -Pprintername

  You should receive information much like the following:

  <matt@lagrange> [$] lpq –Ppoe

  poe is ready and printing

  Rank	Owner	Job	File(s)	Total	Size
  active	matt	18	ps1.ps	35840	bytes
  1st	matt	19	ps2.ps	35840	bytes
  2nd	matt	20	ps3.ps	35840	bytes

• How do I delete one of my jobs from the print queue?

  In order to remove the job from the print queue, you must first determine the job number of your printout. Using the command from the previous question, find your job in the list and then use its job id to build your lprm commmand.

  For example, to remove the second job from the list above, use the following command:

  lprm -Ppoe 19

• How do I set my default printer so I can just type lpr filename instead of lpr -Pprintername filename?

  Issue the following command from the command line of one of the Linux machines:

  lpoptions -d printername

• How do I print to the color printer?

  Use the printer name pot-of-gold (2-168) or rainbow (2-366) as your destination printer.

  lpr -P rainbow filename.ps

• How do I print to the transparencies tray of the color printer?

  Use the printer name pot-of-gold-slides or rainbow-slides as your destination printer.

  lpr -P rainbow-slides filename.ps

• How do I avoid printing the header page?

  Due to popular request, we have disabled header pages. If this becomes a problem we will re-enable them and post information here on how to disable them on a per-job basis.

• How do I print multiple pages of a PostScript document on one sheet of paper?

  The -o number-up=value option selects N-Up printing. N-Up printing places multiple document pages on a single printed page. CUPS supports 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, and 16-Up formats; the default format is 1-Up:

  lpr -o number-up=1 -Pprintername filename ENTER lpr -o number-up=2 -Pprintername filename ENTER lpr -o number-up=4 -Pprintername filename ENTER lpr -o number-up=16 -Pprintername filename ENTER

• How do I print a few pages from a large PostScript document?

  The -o page-ranges=pages option selects a range of pages for printing.

  lpr -o page-ranges=1 -Pprintername filename ENTER
lpr -o page-ranges=1-4 -Pprintername filename ENTER
lpr -o page-ranges=1-4,7,9-12 -Pprintername filename ENTER
lpr -o page-ranges=1-4,7,9-12 -Pprintername filename ENTER

• How do I select only even or odd pages?

  Use the -o page-set=set option to select the even or odd pages.

  lpr -o page-set=odd -Pprintername filename ENTER lpr -o page-set=even -Pprintername filename ENTER lpr -o page-set=even -Pprintername filename ENTER

• How do I print A4 sized PostScript documents on letter sized paper?

  The -o media=xyz option sets the media size, type, and/or source.

  lpr -o media=Letter filename ENTER

• My PDF file is not printing, any suggestions?

  • One possibility is that you PDF document is in A4 format.  In Acrobat Reader, do the following:
    Click on the File menu in the upper left hand corner and select Print Setup. If under Paper it lists A4 as the size, change it to Letter.
  • You can also try printing it on one of the duplex printers.
  • Some PDF files are only compatible with the program they were created in. Try both the Adobe Acrobat Reader (acroread under linux) and the Open-Source document reader xpdf. One of the programs should be able to properly print the document.

• When I print, the printer momentarily says Processing job, but no paper comes out.

  First, make sure no jobs are in the queue. If no jobs are in the queue, power cycle the printer and try sending the job again. If you still have problems, ask for help.

• The printer is turned on, but no jobs are coming out. What's wrong?

  Make sure the printer is online. Some printers have a Go button to toggle whether the printer is online or offline.

  Check whether there are any jobs in the queue. To check all queues, use the command:

  lpstat -o

  If the job is in the queue, the printer is online, and nothing is happening, check the queue status with the command:

  lpc

  To check the queue status, at the lpc> prompt, type status [printer] where [printer] is the name of the printer you would like to know about.