... to understand what I mean you could enter on a ksh or bash prompt
printf "lp -c -d hplaser5000 -n%d %s -s" 5 "/tmp/printfile"
and you will see a completed line, which could be processed by a shell.
'printf' just does the substitutions ('%d' will become '5' and '%s' will become '/tmp/printfile') and echoes the result. No further processing will take place. I use it only for demonstration purposes here, since I don't know your context yet.
