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lpq – Display Printer Queue Status
To see the status of a printer queue, the lpq program is used. This allows us to view the status of the queue and the print jobs it contains. Here is an example of an empty queue for a system default printer named “printer”:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ lpq
printer is ready no entries
[me@linuxbox ~]$ lpq
printer is ready no entries
If we do not specify a printer (using the -P option), the system’s default printer is shown. If we send a job to the printer and then look at the queue, we will see it listed:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ ls *.txt | pr -3 | lp
request id is printer-603 (1 file(s)) [me@linuxbox ~]$ lpq
printer is ready and printing Rank Owner Job File(s) active me 603 (stdin)
Total Size
1024 bytes
[me@linuxbox ~]$ ls *.txt | pr -3 | lp
request id is printer-603 (1 file(s)) [me@linuxbox ~]$ lpq
printer is ready and printing Rank Owner Job File(s) active me 603 (stdin)