can a shell script send images to a printer?

[lkrubner at geocities.com]

Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but I need information, and I was hoping that someone here might be able to point me in the right direction.

I had a shell script that was getting a bunch of inforamation from a database and then sending that info to the printer. That was easy. The information related to the photographs that our photographic department had taken.

However, now I need to make the images appear. I'm not sure how to do this. I know how to send text to a printer from a shell script, but I don't know how to send images to the printer.

My first thought was that I could get the data from the database and wrap it in some HTML. I could take the image name and make that an HTML image tag. I could send the HTML to Mozilla, maybe, and get back a web page. I think, though I don't know, that there are ways to invoke the mozilla rendering engine this way. It's been tough to figure out that technique, because mozilla's documentation seems incomplete. Or I haven't yet found the right page.

But perhaps there is something simpler I can do?

If anyone can point me towards an information source that might lead me closer to an answer, I'll be very grateful.


Lawrence Krubner

434-825-7694