Printing support request

imho the most important missing feature in epdfview, since i have to print pdfs rather often. i'd really like to see this.

Unfortunately I don't have much experience on printing support under Linux. In fact I don't event have a printer!

I know about CUPS. Is it right to use? There are more print "interfaces" that I should know about?

I think CUPS is the printing system most users use, so I'd say it is fine.

afaik, there is going to be a printing dialog in gtk+ 2.10. perhaps that will make it easier.

The printing should simply ask "How man copies" convert the file to ".ps" and then execute lpr -r -#$numbercopies -T $namefortheprintjob $filename.ps

"-r" will delete the file after printing so epdfview doesn't need to deal with it "$nameforprintjob" should maybe be the filename without ".pdf" pdf2ps can be used to convert the pdf2ps

=> printing should only appear if "pdf2ps" and "lpr" is available, otherwise this approach wont work. People that have no lpr will most likely have no printer.

gtk+2.10 will have a full printing dialog, but is it really needed? Does a pdfviewer need a "print preview"-dialog? I mean the pdf-file is already a printpreview.

Except for "number of prints" the only thing that i could think of would be a select range (pages or chapter).

specify the layout you want to print (2 pages on one, 4 on one, landscape/portrait) would be also nice, so I don't think a printing dialog would be bad.

Well, poppler can output the PDF files to PS so there's no need for the pdf2ps utility (that IIRC it comes with poppler).

I saw information about the print dialog in Gtk+-2.10 but currently I'm trying to keep compatibility with Gtk+2.6 so I probably will make a simpler print dialog for epdfview.

I didn't think about using lpr so I'll give it a try. I'm going to build a "preferences" dialog asking for the browser command to use for external links in PDF files (see #13), so I can add the print command to execute as well.

you could just offer command line the user sets to print with a keyword like %f for the filename. then they could use gtklp for example, which is a gtk+ lpr gui.

I finally managed to add support for printing in ePDFView in revision [223].

I use CUPS directly rather than letting the user enter a command, because it's easier (from my POV) to let change options and CUPS is widely used anyways, I think...

I also like the idea of GtkLP, but I think that having the dialog inside ePDFView it feels more "integrated", even though my dialog is uglier ;-)

i kinda like you dialog ;) simple but has (almost) anything you need. only thing i miss: color output mode (greyscale/color) and not all CUPS defaults are used in epdfview (that's why i reopen):

i have media size set to "A4" as default in the cups printer preferences, but epdfview uses "Legal" for paper size. they slightly differ on my test printouts i just made. if you read the default printer and use the printer specific paper sizes, it would be nice to have epdfview use the cups default settings too. and add an output mode combobox for the color/greyscale thingy too, please :)

but anyway, very nice work!

Thanks!

I've added a resolution and color mode combo boxes in commit [233]. Now I think the print support is done.

I think it's better now to open new bugs for missing print functionalities rather than reopening this bug. What do you think? :-)

yeah, you're right, sorry for that. but i think too, that it's complete now. works fine too.