Hi all,
I am on a mac and I am trying to get more information about print jobs i have. "lpq" only displays the document printing, size, and job ID. I need the status (if its on hold or not). Anyway to do that in unix/cups?

For cups, use your browser:
http://localhost:631

I do not know if the "manage jobs" link will provide you with any additional information to what you are already getting, but...

yeah, i am aware of using a browser, but I hoping to get it from unix directly

lpstat -W [completed | not-completed] [-o printername]

will display those jobs that are/aren't completed on all, or specified printer queues.

so:
lpstat -W not-completed -o myprinter

lists all incomplete jobs in the printer queue "myprinter".


Will that work for your purposes?

lpstat -t will list all queues followed by documents in the queues
From what I can tell in my limited test, if the printer is idle but has a job in the queue, then that job is probably on hold?

I'm sure there may be other circumstances under which the printer might be idle with a job in the queue, but...

Also, print jobs on hold (locally at least) appear to have names that start with "d"?

sudo ls -l /private/var/spool/cups/