Printing Using FTP

This section explains printing via ftp. For additional details on ftp commands, please refer to your workstation manual.

FTP and Logical Directory

ftp (File Transfer Protocol) is a protocol for transferring files to a logical directory over a TCP/IP network. For network printing, the IB-53 will work as the logical directory. The IB-53 supports the logical directories lp1 - lp8. Use the cd command to switch between these logical directories.

Printing via ftp

  1. Login to the IB-53.

IB-53 support for anonymous ftp allows logging in without entering a user name or password. The following example uses 192.168.30.161 as the IB-53 IP address.

#ftp 192.168.30.161
Connected to 192.168.30.161
220 IB-53 Ver1.0.0 FTP Server.
User (192.168.110.40:(none)):
331 Password required.
Password:
230 User Logged in.
ftp>

  1. Select the IB-53 logical directory.

Always use lp1 as the logical directory unless printing Kanji text. The following example selects lp1 as the logical directory, then confirms the current directory.

ftp>cd /lp1
250 Command Ok.
ftp>pwd
257 "/lp1" is current directory.
ftp>

  1. Select ASCII or BINARY transfer mode.

BINARY mode should be used to transfer print files generated by a printer driver. ASCII mode is used to transfer text based files and automatically converts LF (linefeed) codes to CR+LF (carriage return, linefeed) codes. If no transfer mode is specified, then ASCII mode is used as the default.

The following example sets BINARY as the transfer mode and confirms the current transfer mode.

ftp>type binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp>type
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp>

  1. Transfer the file using the put command. 

The following example illustrates the transfer of the finance.prn file to the IB-53.

ftp>put finance.prn

In addition, you can also specify the directory where the print file that was transferred when issuing the put command is saved. In the following example, the finance.prn file in /users/export/ is transferred.

ftp>put /users/export/finance.prn /lp1

Furthermore, when transferring print data together with a directory specification as shown above, specify the logical directory (/lp1 in the example above) at the transfer destination. There is no need to move the directory with the cd command.

  1. Close the ftp session.

ftp>quit

To check the printer status after the end of printing, refer to the following Confirming ftp Connection Status section.

Confirming ftp Connection Status

The quote command may be used to confirm the IB-53 IP address, connected user name, and transfer mode, as shown in the following example.

ftp>quote stat
211-FTP server status:
Connected to: 192.168.30.161
User logged in: guest
Transfer type: BINARY
Data connection:Closed.
211 End of status.
ftp>

When the logical directory (lp1 to lp8) is added after the "stat" statement in the example above, you can check the printer status.

ftp>quote stat /lp1
211-FTP directory status:
Ready
211 End of status.
ftp>

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