CUPSwrapper

A collection of shell scripts to interactively print and manage printers via command line.
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Table of Contents

1. About The Project
   • Built With
   • Testing Environment
2. Getting Started
   • Prerequisites
     • Alpine Linux
     • Debian
   • OS Settings
     • Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) Users Only
   • Installation
3. Usage (/src/cups.sh)
4. Roadmap
5. Contributing
6. License
7. Contact
8. Acknowledgments

About The Project

This project provides a dialog-based interface to

• set up a printer,
  

• select a default printer,

• set default printing settings,

• print a document (or stdin input), allowing the user to interactively choose printer and printing settings,
  

• create print job settings (lp arguments) that can be saved into a variable for multiple usage,
  

• cancel print jobs.
  

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Built With

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Testing Environment

The project has been developed and tested on the following system:

Info	Description
OS	Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Kernel	5.15.133.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Packages	avahi-daemon (0.8-10)
	coreutils (9.1-1)
	cups (2.4.2-3+deb12u5)
	dash (0.5.12-2)
	dialog (1.3-20230209-1)
	libc-bin (2.36-9+deb12u3)
	printer-driver-all (0.20210903)

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

Please make sure that the following dependencies are installed:

• Avahi
• CUPS
• Dialog
• In case you have an older printer that does not support driverless printing (IPP) yet you may also need additional legacy drivers.

Below you can find distribution-specific installation instructions.

Alpine Linux

# Required
echo "https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v$(cut -d'.' -f1,2 /etc/alpine-release)/community/" | sudo tee -a /etc/apk/repositories
echo "@testing http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing/" | sudo tee -a /etc/apk/repositories
sudo apk update
sudo apk add avahi cups cups-filters cups-pdf@testing dialog

# Optional
sudo apk add gutenprint-cups@testing

Debian

sudo apt install avahi-daemon cups dialog   # Required
sudo apt install printer-driver-all         # Optional

OS Settings

The current user must be a member of the 'lpadmin' group:

sudo usermod -a -G lpadmin <username>

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) Users Only

Please make sure that systemd is enabled as the default system/session manager. For more information please have a look at: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/systemd

Installation

1. Clone the repo

   git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/fkemser/CUPSwrapper.git

2. Edit the repository configuration file. In case it is empty just keep it as it is, do not delete it.

   nano ./CUPSwrapper/etc/cups.cfg.sh

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Usage (/src/cups.sh)

================================================================================
===============================     SYNOPSIS     ===============================
================================================================================

There are multiple ways to run this script:

Interactive mode (without any args):
> ./cups.sh

Classic (script) mode:
> ./cups.sh [ OPTION ]... ACTION [<file>]

ACTION := { -h|--help | --jobsettings | --print [<file>] }

[<file>] : File to print (optional)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------     ACTION     --------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-h|--help            Show this help message                                     

--submenu <menu>     Run a certain submenu interactively and exit               
                                                                                
                     <menu> = { add | default | defsettings | remove | print }  

--jobsettings        Interactively select printer and print job settings. The   
                     chosen settings will be printed to <stdout>, e.g. for      
                     further use with 'lp' command.                             

--print [<file>]     Print, either from a given <file> or a previous command's  
                     output (via pipe). Interactively select printer and print  
                     job settings before printing.                              

================================================================================
===============================     EXAMPLES     ===============================
================================================================================

____________________________________ Print _____________________________________

./cups.sh --print letter.pdf     # Print a PDF file named 'letter.pdf'
echo Hello | ./cups.sh --print   # Print a command's output, here 'echo Hello'

Roadmap

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

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Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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License

Distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (or later). See LICENSE for more information.

⚠️ The license above does not apply to the files and folders within the library directory /lib. Please have a look at the LICENSE file located in the root directory of each library to get more information.

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Contact

Project Link: https://github.com/fkemser/CUPSwrapper

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Acknowledgments

• othneildrew/Best-README-Template
• Ileriayo/markdown-badges

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