www.apsfilter.org. Apsfilter is an input filter and it does a great job of

supporting a variety of printers as well and a variety of print jobs and

even postscript printing. It recognises a variety of file formats and uses

the correct filter.

Download the latest version, which is 5.4.2 as of writing this

article. After downloading the file you need to un-archive it. Depending

on the file type you downloaded, you will give one of the following

commands.

tar zxvf apsfilter-5.4.2.tar.gz

tar xIvf apsfilter-5.4.2.tar.bz2

Go into the directory apsfilter that is created. Run the SETUP script.

./SETUP

This script will go out and check what filters you have installed in your

system. It is recommended that you have Ghostscript 6 and above. After you

go through the licenses, apsfilter will check for the necessary filters. A

few more key presses and you'll be at the menu. First, press 1 to select

your printer type. Apsfilter will pop up a big list of printer drivers to

pick from. Find a printer that is a close match if you cannot find your

printer. The next option (2) is to choose an interface for your printer,

whether local or over the network. Option 4 under this one relates to

Windows printers. Enter the necessary information in here. Make sure that

samba and specifically smbclient is accessible. Select a paper format. You

can the print a testpage and check things out.

If everything else checks out then you press 'C' to continue the

installation. Apsfilter will then go out and setup your printcap

file. Next it will ask for a location to install the man pages in, whether

you want any compression. Apsfilter will then check the file permissions

of the spool directory. Apsfilter will spew out some more information at

you.

Printing to Linux

If you have the printer setup and working under Linux then you just need

to make changes to you /etc/smb.conf file.

Add the following three lines to the global section.

printing = bsd - This is the method to use under Linux. For other options

you need to look at the man pages for smb.conf

printcap name = /etc/printcap - The path to your printcap file

load printers = yes - If set to yes then all the printers defined in the

printcap file are loaded and made available at startup.

Next add another section like the following

[Linprinter]