Linux lp command: print both sides on multiple files

command linelinuxprinterprinting

I have some png, pdf files, most have only 1 page.

To save papers, is it possible to print both sides on multiple files?

if file1 has one page, if file2 has one page, I can print them in one page , on both sides.

I can use (online) tools to merge them then print. but this would take more effort: these files are in different sub folders, of different types.

Thanks.

Best Answer

To a printer each print job is a separate entity, and hence it is not possible for printers to merge them.

In addition, when duplexing "face down" (so that the pages are in the correct order in the output tray), the printer will print pages in the order 2,1,4,3, etc. If a job consists of only one page, there is no way a printer can print that on the "backside" of the paper - it needs to already have received page 2, as that needs to be printed first.

For PDFs PDFTKBuilder is a lovely free app that will merge them (it will do other things as well) but that is of no use if you also use other file types.

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The lpr man page states:

-hheader       Specify  a title to be used on the banner page (if any).
               Default title is the name of the file.

And nothing else concerning this (meaning, as it states: "Default title is the name of the file", as you didn't pass the -h parameter). So it looks like a misbehaviour, at least at first sight. On a second look, I notice your -p parameter:

-p             Add pr(1) style headers to each page (text only)

Taking a look at the pr(1) man page:

use a centered HEADER instead of filename in page header, -h  ""
prints a blank line, don't use -h""

My guess would be that this "centered header" is only calculated once, instead for each file separately. So you could try your both approaches without the -p parameter to check whether that introduces the problem -- or try a third approach:

for myfile in file*.txt; do lpr -p $myfile; done

which would invoke lpr for each file separately, and thus get you rid of the described problem.

Best Answer

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