brf-printer-app implements printing for a variety of common Braille printers
connected via network or USB. Features include:
- A single executable handles spooling, status, and server functionality.
- Multiple printer support.
- Each printer implements an IPP Everywhere™ print service and is compatible with the driverless printing support in Linux®.
- Each printer can directly print "raw", pdf,ubrl files.
Note: Please use the Github issue tracker to report issues or request features/improvements in
brf-printer-app:
brf-printer-app depends on:
- A POSIX-compliant "make" program (both GNU and BSD make are known to work),
- A C99 compiler (both Clang and GCC are known to work),
- PAPPL 1.1 or later.
- CUPS 2.2 or later (for libcups).
- CUPS-FILTER 1.28.16 or later.
To install brf-printer-app from source, you'll need a "make"
program, a C99 compiler (Clang and GCC work), the CUPS developer files, and the
PAPPL developer files. Once the prerequisites are installed on your system,
use the following commands to install brf-printer-app to "/usr/local/bin":
make
sudo make install
You can change the destination directory by setting the prefix variable on
the second command, for example:
sudo make prefix=/opt/brf-printer-app install
brf-printer-app uses a single executable to perform all functions. The normal
syntax is:
brf-printer-app SUB-COMMAND [OPTIONS] [FILES]
where "SUB-COMMAND" is one of the following:
- "add": Add a printer
- "cancel": Cancel one or more jobs
- "default": Get or set the default printer
- "delete": Delete a printer
- "devices": List available printers
- "drivers": List available drivers
- "jobs": List queued jobs
- "modify": Modify a printer
- "options": Lists the supported options and values
- "printers": List added printer queues
- "server": Run in server mode
- "shutdown": Shutdown a running server
- "status": Show server or printer status
- "submit": Submit one or more files for printing
You can omit the sub-command if you just want to print something, for example:
brf-printer-app somefile.brf
The options vary based on the sub-command, but most commands support "-d" to specify a printer and "-o" to specify a named option with a value, for example:
brf-printer-app -d myprinter somefile.brf: Print a file to the printer named "myprinter".brf-printer-app -o media=na_letter_8.5x11in picture.brf: Print a media to a US letter sheet.brf-printer-app default -d myprinter: Set "myprinter" as the default printer.
See the brf-printer-app man page for more examples.
Normally you'll run brf-printer-app in the background as a service for your
printer(s), using the systemd service file:
sudo systemctl enable brf-printer-app.service
sudo systemctl start brf-printer-app.service
You can start it in the foreground with the following command:
sudo brf-printer-app server -o log-file=- -o log-level=debug
Root access is needed on Linux when talking to USB printers, otherwise you can
run brf-printer-app without the "sudo" on the front.
The following printers are currently supported:
- Generic Braille embosser.
The Braille Printer Application is Copyright © 2024 by Arun Patwa. Some of the reference has been taken from (https://github.com/chandresh-soni/Braille-printer-app) which is copyright © 2022 by Chandresh Soni. and also from pappl-retrofit.(https://github.com/OpenPrinting/pappl-retrofit) which is Copyright © 2022 by openprinting.
Filter used to convert various file format are in cups-filter is Copyright © 2022 by Samuel Thibault ([email protected]).
It is derived from the HP PCL Printer Application, a first working model of a raster Printer Application using PAPPL. It is available here:
https://github.com/michaelrsweet/hp-printer-apps
The HP PCL Printer Application is Copyright © 2019-2020 by Michael R Sweet.
This software is licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0. See the files "LICENSE" and "NOTICE" for more information.