Printing services

Overview on the printing services at RZG

The RZG offers printing services for users at the Garching IPP campus.

There are two printserver systems for the users, winprint.ipp.mpg.de and printserver.ipp.mpg.de. Depending on the operating system used by the individual user he/she has to decide which of the two printservers to use. Please see the following decision matrix to decide which printserver is the right one for you.

_{(*)  Supported but not recommended}

Windows: How-to install printers from winprint

Note: The printserver winprint is for windows operating systems exclusively. If you are using MS Windows XP or higher, please use winprint instead of the printserver.

• Access the printserver system by clicking on "Start" --> "Run" --> "\\winprint" --> OK.
• To install one or more of these printers please double-click on the printer you want to use. The Windows operating system will then download and install the required drivers from the printserver automatically.

Linux/Unix: How-to install printers from printserver

Note: If you are using a Microsoft Windows operating system make sure to use winprint instead of printserver! 

Linux

Please install the CUPS printing system using your operating systems package management.
On Fedora/CentOS/RHEL, the command is:  "yum -y install cups-client"
On SuSE/OpenSuSE/SLES, the command is:  "yast sw_single cups-client"
On Ubuntu, the command is:  "apt-get install cups-client"

Once you have installed the CUPS printing system, edit the file /etc/cups/client.conf  and restart CUPS using the following command as user root:

echo "ServerName printserver.ipp.mpg.de" >/etc/cups/client.conf
/etc/init.d/cups restart

Now you will be able to see and use all queues offered by the printserver printing system using the CUPS printing system in GUI applications (Firefox, Adobe Reader, etc) or using the well-known lpr command.

UNIX

Please ensure you have a working OpenAFS client installed and running on your system.
Now please become root on your system (e.g. using ksu) and execute the following commands:

mv /etc/printcap /etc/printcap.old
ln -s /afs/ipp/common/etc/printcap.rzg.global /etc/printcap

Finally, please logout and re-login to your system. You should now be able to use any of the printing queues offered by the printserver printing system using the lpr command.

MacOS

The howto for MacOS is under construction.

Poster printing

Poster printing how-to

The name of the DIN-A0 poster printer at RZG is rzi0c, located in the first floor of building D2.

It is strongly recommended to print from a Windows system.  Make sure to install the printer rzi0c first by following the steps outlined above. A step-by-step printing how-to is given below. If you don't have access to a Windows system, you can use the Windows terminal server rdsv4ts provided by RZG.

From Linux/UNIX, the terminal server can be accessed using rdesktop, e.g.

rdesktop -d IPP-AD -g 1024x768 -a 24 rdsv4ts.rzg.mpg.de   (this example would use a 1024x768 resolution for the remote desktop window).

The step-by-step printing how-to is as follows:

1. Check if the printer rzi0c has paper and is operational. It is located in the first floor of building D2.
2. Open the PDF file of the poster you want to print in Adobe Reader. (The AFS home directory is mounted as H: on the terminal server.)
   
   
   
   Click on "Print..."/"Drucken...".
3. Chose the poster printer rzi0c from the pulldown menu.
   
   
   
   After selecting the printer, click on "Properties"/"Eigenschaften".
4. Select the paper size ISO-A0.
   
   
   
   Click on "OK". (You may note that the dimensions of the poster in the preview window are not correct. See the next step!)
5. Click on "Properties"/"Eigenschaften" again, and directly afterwards on "OK". This step is crucial to make Adobe Reader aware of the A0 paper size and is related to a bug in the printer driver.
   The printing dialogue should now look as follows. Note the correct dimensions of the A0 poster in the preview window.
   
   
    
6. Final step: Click on "OK" to start printing.
7. In rare cases, the printing subsystem may have problems to print vector graphics correctly. In these cases, the following workaround may help:
   Click on "Extended"/"Erweitert" and activate "Als Bild drucken"/"Print as image". Click on "OK" to close the dialogue, and click on "OK" to start printing.