communicating with printer drivers from command line?

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

I have a script sending stuff to a Canon Pixma IP4000 printer, and
ideally I'd like it to be able to query the printer for it's status. Is
it possible to find out if the printer is online? Or, ideally, things
like if it's out of paper, ink status, and all that?

But simply knowing whether it's working would be enough.

If not possible with Canon, any others that it is possible with?

I'm using Windows, but would be open to other OS's.

Thanks for any help.