Printer Skill (Public)

A small, security-safe guide for printing documents and generated diagrams on macOS via CUPS.

Goals

• Print from the command line reliably.
• Prefer black-and-white and light mode assets to reduce ink usage.
• Keep assets simple and legible (diagram-style, high contrast).

Discover printers

List available printers:

lpstat -p

Pick the printer name you want to target (example placeholder below):

PRINTER_NAME="Your_Printer_Name"

Core commands

Print a text file

lp -d "$PRINTER_NAME" /path/to/file.txt

Print a PDF (recommended for final printouts)

lp -d "$PRINTER_NAME" /path/to/file.pdf

Print an image (PNG/JPG)

lp -d "$PRINTER_NAME" /path/to/image.png

Check the queue

lpstat -W not-completed -o "$PRINTER_NAME"

Cancel a job

cancel JOB_ID
# Example:
# cancel Your_Printer_Name-46

Black-and-white + light mode defaults

Printing in B&W depends on the driver/PPD. First, list printer options:

lpoptions -p "$PRINTER_NAME" -l

Common knobs to look for (names vary):

• print-color-mode (e.g. monochrome)
• ColorModel (e.g. Gray)
• sides (one-sided, two-sided-long-edge)

Example (only if supported):

lp -d "$PRINTER_NAME" \
  -o print-color-mode=monochrome \
  -o sides=one-sided \
  /path/to/file.pdf

If your driver doesn’t expose reliable B&W toggles, the safest approach is to generate assets that are already black-and-white.

Making print-ready diagrams

Any image generator can work. In practice, a strong “good enough” baseline is a modern text-to-image model capable of clean diagram output.

Prompt checklist:

• White background (light mode)
• Black line art / black text only
• No gradients, no shading
• Minimalist vector/diagram style
• High contrast, large readable labels

Example prompt snippet:

“Black-and-white diagram, white background, high-contrast line art, minimalist vector icons, no shading/gradients, simple labels sized for printing.”

Suggested workflow

1. Generate a B&W, light-mode diagram (PNG or PDF).
2. Save it locally.
3. Print:

lp -d "$PRINTER_NAME" /path/to/diagram.png

4. Verify queued job:

lpstat -W not-completed -o "$PRINTER_NAME"

Notes

• A “blank” page still feeds one sheet; keep content minimal.
• If image scaling is off, convert to a 1‑page PDF at a known page size before printing.