All of these use gs , the Ghostscript PostScript emulation program, to generate a display-able bitmap graphic from the specified input file. See the man pages for more details on each of the programs mentioned here. PDF files are NOT the same as PostScript files. To view or print a PDF file, use acroread . Because of printer memory limits, large PDF files may have to be printed a few pages at a time.
Some printers have a duplex option for printing on both sides of the paper.
Your supervisor should be able to give you a copying account. This way other people can print rush jobs on the free printer. If it's nearly out, please fill it. All of these commands have man pages too. Run man genscript to learn about other command line options.