printing via pc-nfs

[Jacob Gore]

celvin%ee.surrey.ac.uk at nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk (Chris Elvin):
> I have recently installed pc-nfs on a bunch of pc clones and was wondering
> if anybody has had experience of printing files remotely other than via
> the "net print" command.  I'm looking at printing from within GEM or
> MS-WINDOWS (and other applcations) and so far, all my output has
> disappeared down a black-hole.

You can use the "printer hot key" feature, which is supposed to start the
printing when you hit the "hot key" (normally ALT-p).

But there's a catch: it sometimes takes some... persuasion.

Here's what is supposed to happen.  When you "print" from whatever
application, you'll see the cursor flash in the upper right corner of the
screen (that's the PC-NFS network activity indicator).  This is because
"printing" just concatenates the output to a file that pcnfsd on your
server has already opened for that purpose.  After the flickering stops,
you can either "print" more stuff, or tell pcnfsd that it's OK to hand the
spooled stuff off to lpr.

You hit ALT-p and the network activity indicator starts flashing again...
sometimes.  And other times it doesn't.  I can only guess what is causing
the delay.  Exiting the application always causes the printing, but that's
a pain.  Sometimes you have can do some operations in your applications
that somehow make the printing happen.  For example, in WordPerfect 5.0,
one trick is to just enter the "print" menu, then into "select printer"
menu -- ta ta! network activity...  PC-KLUGE at work :-)

Anyway, once you got the blinking flashing cursor, pcnfsd on the server
tacks a ".spl" to the name of the spool file, opens a new spool file for
future printing, and sends the .spl file to 'lpr -r' (or something to that
effect). 

Jacob Gore				Gore at EECS.NWU.Edu
Northwestern Univ., EECS Dept.		{oddjob,gargoyle,att}!nucsrl!gore