• PostScript, PDF, International Text, TIFF, GIF, PNG, JPEG, SUN−Raster and other graphic formats
• CUPS uses the rules in the configuration file /etc/cups/mime.types to determine the MIME type of files to be printed.
  From the MIME type CUPS is deriving the printing format.

• evince
• LibreOffice
• Gimp
• Firefox/Thunderbird

use option sides=one-sided

• using lpr: lpr -Pprinter -o sides=one-sided myfile
• using lp: lp -d printer -o sides=one-sided myfile
• if a simplex instance exists: lp -d printer/simplex myfile

Use lpoptions to save personal option settings in ~/.lpoptions.

Example:

lpoptions -o pagesize=A3 -p znecad

• lp -n number-of-copies file

Copies are not collated by default. Use the -o Collate=True option to get collated copies:

• lp -n number-of-copies -o Collate=True file

In order to change the borders around each page, use the -o page-border=value option. Supported borders are:

• none: do not draw a border (default)
• double: draw two hairline borders around each page
• double-thick: draw two 1pt borders around each page
• single: draw one hairline border around each page
• single-thick: draw one 1pt border around each page

Example: 

lp -o number-up=4 -o page-border=double myfile

In order to change the arrangement of the pages on each output page, use the -o number-up-layout=value option. Possible values are:

• lrtb: Left to right, top to bottom (default)
• lrbt: Left to right, bottom to top
• rlbt: Right to left, bottom to top
• rltb: Right to left, top to bottom
• tblr: Top to bottom, left to right
• tbrl: Top to bottom, right to left
• btlr: Bottom to top, left to right
• btrl: Bottom to top, right to left

Explanation: The default layout is lrtb (Left to right, top to bottom). This means: using a number-up of 4, the first page will be printed on the top-left of the outputpage, the second page will be printed on the top-right, the third page will be printed on the bottem-left and the fourth page on the bottom-right of the outputpage.
Example: 

lp -o number-up=4 -o number-up-layout=btrl myfile

• Other applications such as a2ps do not have a default at all but decide the paper format based on the language settings.

For a2ps LANG=en_US will select letter format, while LANG=C, LANG=en_GB or LANG=de_DE will force A4 format.

To print man pages use:
man -t | lp ...

To print iso8859-1 characters encoded in utf-8, just print the file as usual. Cups will select the correct filter automatically. If you want to print non-iso8859-1 characters (e.g. Cyrillic or Chinese characters):

• use an utf-8 ready terminal like KDEs konsole or Gnomes gnome-terminal.
  • Xterm does support utf-8 only in conjunction with an ISO10646-1 font, which is not the default!
• set the $LANG - variable: Example: LANG=de_DE.utf-8
• see "man locale" for more information and do have a look at the question above
• print the file using the "-o document-format=text/utf8" option.

Example:

lpr -Pznlo1 -o document-format=text/utf8 utf8.txt

• The psutils suite of programs is not compatible with the CUPS postscript processing (filter).
  • It is unmaintained since a long time, therefore improvement of the situation is unlikely.
• With the following command you can bypass the postscript filter
  • lp -o document-format=application/bindshort -dprinter myfile

• The psutils tools caused this problem (see above).
• With the following command you can bypass the postscript filter
  • lp -o document-format=application/bindlong -dprinter myfile
  • or lp -o document-format=application/bindshort -dprinter myfile

YES! The size of ASCII-text can be changed by using the cpi (characters per inch) or lpi (lines per inch) options. Unlike Cups-default, the cpi -option will be ignored if both options are present. Default is a value of 80 characters per virtual line in portrait, and 113 characters per virtual line in landscape mode. This means a value of round about 9.7 characters per inch.

• Please check if it is an eps file. In this case you have to convert into a ps file with ps2ps or convert.
• Check the header of the postscript file. Maybe it is for a special printer hardware.

The tools are buggy, try to use epstopdf.

• Yes, it is possible. On https://www-it.desy.de/systems/services/printing/printer.html you can see which cups server (from DESY Hamburg) supports a printer.
• Printing with
  • lp -h <cups server>.desy.de -d<printer> ... 
• Further options will be ignored.

• This is a bug in cups or gtk.
• Choose in the Print menu Job and then choose in 

Add Cover Page Before the Banner setup Standard.