1. Introduction

The Printing HOWTO should contain everything you need to know to help you set up printing services on your GNU/Linux box(en). As life would have it, it's a bit more complicated than in the point-and-click world of Microsoft and Apple, but it's also a bit more flexible and certainly easier to administer for large LANs.

This document is structured so that most people will only need to read the first half or so. Most of the more obscure and situation-dependent information in here is in the last half, and can be easily located in the Table of Contents, whereas some information through section 10 or 11 is probably needed by most people.

If you find this document or the linuxprinting.org website useful, consider buying something (ink, for example) through the referral links on the site; such purchases support this effort.

The linuxprinting.org website is a good place to find the latest version; it is also, of course, distributed from tldp.org and your friendly local LDP mirror.