I have an HP1320 printer connected to my 'server' machine which runs Ubuntu 9.10. The CUPS version is 1.4.1. The printer works fine for 'formatted' output from such things as Firefox, Open Office, PDF files, etc.

However I can't get it to print text files in a sensible format, when I do something like:-

ls -al | lpr

I get a printout in a a rather odd typeface and much too big, it looks something like 5 characters per inch. It makes not difference if I set the default options using lpoptions, nothing seems to change the size of the text. It's also the same whether I print locally (i.e. from the command line on the server machine) or remotely from other machines on the network.

If I do the same thing to my other printer (an HP7310 inkjet which has its own network interface) then I get exactly what I hope/expect, i.e. the printout is at 10cpi in something that looks like Courier. That of course doesn't go via the server machine, CUPS on the client machine sends direct to the printer.

Aaaahhhh, the problem is with CUPS 1.4.1. The HP7310 wasn't installed as a printer in CUPS on the server machine (didn't really need it) but I have just done so and printing from the command line on *that* machine to the HP7310 produces the same wrong/too big output.

So, it's CUPS 1.4.1 that gets the command line defaults wrong.

Any ideas how to fix this anyone?