Answer by slm for How can I `man print`?

If you're asking about how to print from the command line the command you're looking for is usually lpr or lp. These are frontend tools for printing files from the command line.

• lp man page
• lpr man page

NOTE: You can search the man pages using -k to search for keywords. If you'd done man -k print you would've found these pages.

To see what printers are available you can use lpstat -a, for example:

$ lpstat -abrfax accepting requests since Wed 19 Jun 2013 06:20:02 PM EDTBrother-MFC-4800 accepting requests since Wed 05 Jun 2013 01:35:48 PM EDTBrother-MFC-J825DW accepting requests since Mon 17 Dec 2012 01:54:12 PM ESTmfc-8480dn accepting requests since Wed 19 Jun 2013 06:19:59 PM EDTs820 accepting requests since Wed 19 Jun 2013 06:20:01 PM EDTs820-scully accepting requests since Wed 19 Jun 2013 06:20:02 PM EDTStylus-NX300 accepting requests since Fri 08 Mar 2013 03:13:58 PM EST

To print to one of these printers I generally use the lp command like so:

$ lp -d mfc-8480dn sample.txtrequest id is mfc-8480dn-454 (1 file(s))

To see what's in your print queue:

$ lpq -aRank    Owner   Job     File(s)                         Total Size1st     saml    453     (stdin)                         0 bytesactive  saml    454     sample.txt                   1024 bytes

To remove a job from the print queue:

$ lprm 453

The print queue is now empty:

$ lpq -ano entries