Better N-up print support; No easy way to print a single sheet of multiple copies of the same photo

[William Hood]

This is a problem because it is trivial to accomplish this in Windows XP but is nearly impossible in Linux (meaning it is likely to be a "blocking" issue for people who need this functionality but otherwise wish to switch to Ubuntu or any other flavor of Linux). This problem especially impacts creative professionals with tasks such as printing a sheet of postcards, or photographers printing a sheet of wallet-size prints of the same photo.

Windows XP's standard image printing functionality includes the ability to use the same picture several times on a proof sheet (IE: Printing a sheet of four copies of the same photo on a single sheet to cut apart later). I have found no easy way to do this in Ubuntu or Kubuntu (for that matter, I have found no way at all at this point in time). The app that comes closest to allowing this is gthumb, which allows using several pictures per page, but does not allow using the same image several times on one page.

I would suggest contributing/requesting this functionality in "Eye of Gnome", as well as in the default image viewer used in Kubuntu (and every other major Ubuntu flavor). It might also be a good idea to contribute/request support for this in GIMP. Another solution might be to write an open-source image printing wizard that matches the Windows XP eqivalent as closely as possible.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for your bug. I've forwarded it upstream: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349648

[none (ubuntu-bugs-nullinfinity-deactivatedaccount)]

Printing more than one image per page is possible with gthumb, although its print dialog has some other deficiencies. It can of course also be done with GIMP or another image editor.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Upstream asks:

see also Gnome Photo Printer
http://www.fogman.de/?GnomePhotoPrinter

http://applications.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/09/0319227&tid=13&tid=49
http://hardware.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/03/0620241

are you sure EoG is the right place for this? do you want to continue this
request or is Gnome Photo Printer enough?
it seems like integrating Gnome Photo Printer might be the way to go.

[William Hood (william-a-hood)]

As long as there is an easy, obvious way to print more than one of the
same photo on the same sheet of paper, I'm happy. I think it is more up
to Canonical to judge where the appropriate place to put that
functionality would be.

On Thu, 2007-02-08 at 09:00 +0000, Daniel Holbach wrote:

> Upstream asks:
>
> see also Gnome Photo Printer
> http://www.fogman.de/?GnomePhotoPrinter
>
> http://applications.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/09/0319227&tid=13&tid=49
> http://hardware.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/03/0620241
>
> are you sure EoG is the right place for this? do you want to continue this
> request or is Gnome Photo Printer enough?
> it seems like integrating Gnome Photo Printer might be the way to go.
>
> ** Changed in: eog (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Needs Info
>

[bluecat9 (justinoros)]

I was just about to report this bug and am glad to see someone already has...

eog should definitely have this capability as most users (including myself) who transited from Windows XP see eog as "Windows Image and Fax Viewer" for Ubuntu.

We need one app for all of our basic image manipulating needs and I feel eog is very close to being that app.

If eog has the added print functionality it will be equal to the XP equivalent IMO which says a lot.

If eog has the added ability to Resize and Crop it will be one mark higher. ;)

[Thomas van der Burgt (thvdburgt)]

The lack of this future even holds my mother from switching to linux. gthumb & GNOME photo printer are both not capable of doing this in an easy way.

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

I was just about to report this major restriction, too, and am glad that you have also reported it.

As I see it, creating such a dialogue should be an easy, but absolutely urgent and necessary task. Ubuntu is still lacking some "standard features" that can be *very* annoying, and among these I count this one. Printing photos is an everyday task and for an OS that is made "for human beings", such a task should be easy to accomplish.

My proposal: Add a "Print photo" subpoint to the context menu and create a nice dialogue with a preview of what is going to be printed. Take a look at Windows' one, it is very well structured actually.

I can hardly imagine anything more annoying than wasting two hours for printing two copies of a 13x18cm photo!

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

I have linked this bug report to a corresponding blueprint.
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/easier-photo-printing

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

Has there been any progress with this important feature in the recent time?

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

Devs, any progress :-)?

[Ingo Gerth (igerth)]

There has been no activity for this report in a long while. As I think that this might break a new user's experience, I would like to propose it for the papercuts project.

[Chris Wilson (notgary-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks a lot for reporting this as a papercut, however this constitutes a feature request which is outwith the definition of a papercut, so I am declining it. Also, given the length of time that seems to have elapsed, I think it's safe to say that the solution to this is non-trivial, which also invalidates it as a papercut.

For what it's worth, a few months ago this problem shaved 6 years off my life. I'd love to see a fix.

[Jack Leigh (leighman)]

A better printing dialog in general would be good since I was trying to print 4 pdfs on the same sheet and had the resort to Windows