[Upstream] gtkprint/kprinter not used when running under Gtk/KDE

[Jimmy Kloss]

KDE is Kubuntu's desktop therefore all applications which want print should use 'kprinter' to do so, but OpenOffice doesn't.

AFAIK my Dapper installation is up to date (31.05.2006 at ~ 12:00).

Note: the original reporter indicated the bug was in package 'openoffice'; however, that package was not published in Ubuntu.

[Manuel López-Ibáñez (manuellopezibanez)]

As far as I know, this is hard to accomplish, since OpenOffice has its own printing dialogs. It neither uses gnomeprint in GNOME.

Perhaps, DBUS or project Portland can help on this. You may join them. Also, you may join the OpenOffice community and promote this idea (which I am very much in favour). Meanwhile, the Ubuntu community cannot do anything about this, so I will reject the bug.

[Jimmy Kloss (phorsyon)]

On Wednesday 07 June 2006 13:49, manu wrote:
> As far as I know, this is hard to accomplish, since OpenOffice has its
> own printing dialogs. It neither uses gnomeprint in GNOME.
>
> Perhaps, DBUS or project Portland can help on this. You may join them.
> Also, you may join the OpenOffice community and promote this idea (which
> I am very much in favour). Meanwhile, the Ubuntu community cannot do
> anything about this, so I will reject the bug.
>
> ** Changed in: Ubuntu
> Sourcepackagename: None => openoffice.org
> Status: Unconfirmed => Rejected

On Gentoo OOo comes with a printer setup tool called 'oopadmin'. It allows
e.g. to switch the command from the 'Generic Printer' from 'lpr'
to 'kprinter'.

This can also be done in Kubuntu by editing '/etc/openoffice/psprint.conf'.

Just add 'kprinter' to line 83

before:
83: Command=

after:
83: Command=kprinter

It isn't the 100% integration but it makes OOo work with 'kprinter' instead
of ''. ;-)

[Manuel López-Ibáñez (manuellopezibanez)]

Then I reopen it and, please, excuse my ignorance. You will have to wait until someone more expert could give you a proper answer.

[Matthew Flaschen (matthew-flaschen)]

I got it to work using the spadmin program. Follow the instructions at http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_OpenOffice_with_KDE , but just use /usr/bin/kprinter for the command.

[Jimmy Kloss (phorsyon)]

Well, I mentioned that printer admin tool OOo ships, but Kubuntu doesn't come with it by default. Anyway it's not needed. My solution, as mentioned above, goes like this:

1. Open this file '/etc/openoffice/psprint.conf' with your editor of choice (needs root).
2. Jump to line 83
3. Read the line like this: "Command="
4. Add the string 'kprinter' to the line
5. Now read the line like this: "Command=kprinter"
6. Save the file
7. Try to (directly) Print in OpenOffice and realize how easy that actually was

I don't know why this so hard to fix this for the Kubuntu guys. I recently installed Kubuntu 7.04 on my Laptop, which was still running 6.06.1 LTS, It had the same issue, which I just fixed with my solution from 2006.06.07.

I've added a diff now.
Maybe somebody can tell me what else I can to do to get this fixed in Kubuntu 7.10.

[Matthew Flaschen (matthew-flaschen)]

I think it does come with spadmin, because I didn't install it separately. It's at /usr/lib/openoffice/program/spadmin .

[René Vangsgaard (rene-vangsgaard)]

Matthews (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/47658/comments/4) workaround works for me on Kubuntu 7.10.

I just installed Kubuntu 7.10, and the kprinter dialog was the dialog shown when activating print. Then i had problems opening a Word-document, that a friend easily could open in OO on Windows. So I used adept to reinstall OO, and then the kprinter integration didn't work.

The fix from Jimmy Kloss (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/47658/comments/5) didn't work for me - no kprinter dialog appeared. So I followed Matthews workaround, and it works fine.

PS. I still cannot open the Word-document, that made me reinstall OO :-/

[Antonio Costantino (anto-costantino)]

Easy and handy! Jimmy Kloss' fix (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/47658/comments/5) works fine for me on kubuntu 7.10 and Oo 2.3.0.

Many thanks.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

FWIW, it doesn't use gtkprint in Gnome either.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

I'm not sure why someone marked this bug as Fix Released... Don't abuse launchpad, if a bug isn't Fixed then don't close it as Fix Released, or state why you think it is Fixed at minimum.

Thanks,

Chris Cheney

[FriedChicken (domlyons)]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/47658/comments/5 didn't work for me (Hardy Heron, OOo 2.4).

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

There is a blueprint for using a different print dialog from openaccessibility but I don't know if it will make it time for Intrepid.

[Philipp Schlesinger (philipp-sadleder)]

See https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/applications-printing

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

When OOo detects that it is running under either Gtk/Gnome or KDE it should use integrated printing dialog, the gtkprint dialog for Gtk/Gnome and kprinter under KDE. There is already a patch for gtkprint available in Fedora.

[Rodo (rodo)]

Jan, I hope it is OK to reassign to you, as it is general UI related.

[Horst (horst-redhat-bugs)]

Description of problem:
The help tells me to go to File --> Print, and select Handout in the "Content listbox". There just isn't any "Content listbox"in the print menu.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
openoffice.org-impress-3.0.1-13.1.fc11.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Actual results:

Expected results:

Additional info:

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 476037 ***

[Horst (horst-redhat-bugs)]

This is certainly a completely different matter (ooimpress has no way to select handout printing) than 476037 (ooimpress crash closing window while printing)

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

Toggle on the alternative dialog, i.e.
tools->options->general and tick on "use openoffice.org dialogs"

Need a way to get the system dialog to be able to show the extended non-system features.

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

This sort of thing *used* to be in the options... dialog, but some of them have gotten moved around, which complicates matters

[Horst (horst-redhat-bugs)]

Re #3: There is no mention of this in the documentation... one of the things that did make me go to MSFT Office was precisely that I could not find a way to print presentations.

Thanks!

[Nicola (nicola-redhat-bugs)]

I had the same problem: I wanted to print just the notes of an Impress presentation, found in the Guide the part about "Content", but that dialog was missing. The workaround suggested by Caolan in comment #3 solved the issue, but certainly this regression should be fixed.

[William (william-redhat-bugs)]

"use openoffice.org dialogs" actually spells out (Load/Save) and makes
no mention of Print (which it modifies). Right now File - Print dialog
'Option' button no longer includes Content (Drawing|Notes|Handouts|Outline)
leaving the user entirely confused until they trip across THIS bug report.

Thank you for the hint, please restore the regression of the Content Dialog
choices under the Options pane.

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 484856 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

I'm going to revert to the built-in dialog for now, see https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-desktop-list/2009-March/msg00044.html for some details.

Would be a good bit easier with a "selection" option, and "printer changed" signal as part of the standard base gtk print dialog

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

i just checked and the fedora guys definitely use the default gnome printing dialog in open office. so one could perhaps have a look at their patches and try to include them into ubuntu.

[David (david-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 506182 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[David (david-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 506907 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Philip (philip-redhat-bugs)]

The revert to the OOo dialog seems to have brought problems. Randomly the printer list is empty. I have two documents open, Ctrl+P one one gives me my laser, Ctrl+P on the other just gives me "generic printer". Close dialog, Ctrl+P again and it works.

[Illtud (illtud-redhat-bugs)]

Other bugs complaining that OOo has stopped using gtk print dialog have been marked as duplicates of this one. I don't quite see that they're the same issue. I can't now print 2up (my default format, and one strongly encouraged in my enterprise) because of this issue. Is there a way of manually switching OOo back to using the gtk print dialog? I was perfectly happy with it.

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

It need to be reimplemented. Plan is to build it on top of the printerpullpages work of http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Printerpullpages/Specification_OOo32 which will enable getting it merged into the "vanilla" upstream tree which allows the translations and help to get synced up wrt. the custom options in the built-in dialog

There's no way to manually switch it back, the code just isn't in there.

[Kendy (kendy)]

Closing as a feature request, we have this in our feature request database.

[David (david-redhat-bugs)]

taking over as agreed

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 585239 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 596522 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

*** Bug 600556 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Alex (alex-redhat-bugs)]

Is the reversion to the OOo print dialogs still supposed to be present in F-13? I seem to only get OOo not GNOME dialogs when printing with openoffice.org-core-3.2.0-12.24.fc13.x86_64. Is this being worked on upstream?

[David (david-redhat-bugs)]

dtardon->alexl: yes, it is (for both questions)

[Caolan (caolan-redhat-bugs)]

Where "being worked on upstream" doesn't mean "being worked on by some giant team of anonymous *other* people, but being worked on by the same unfortunate assignee as here"

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

[This is an automated message.]
There are no new official OpenOffice.org releases in Ubuntu packaging anymore => Won't Fix

If the problem persists, please mark this bug as "also affects project Libreoffice" or "also affects distribution Libreoffice (Ubuntu)" if that has not happened already.

Please leave references to upstream OpenOffice.org bugs in place to allow cross pollination.

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

This is:
- a clearcut upstream issue
- wishlist/feature request unlikely to be fixable with a simple patch
- wont be fixed in libreoffice packaging
Resolving as WONTFIX in libreoffice packaging. This does not mean the issue will not be cared about, but if it is cared about (even by Ubuntu/Canonical contributors), it is done upstream at LibreOffice.

Libreoffice (Ubuntu) => WONTFIX

Please file a upstream bug against Libreoffice: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugReport

Libreoffice => Incomplete (missing upstream bug URL)

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

In http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/cgi_img_auth.php/6/6b/0102GS3-SettingUpLibO.odt they say:

"(Mac only) To use the standard Print dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use LibreOffice dialogs option. When this option is selected, the Print dialogs supplied with LibreOffice will be used. This book uses the LibreOffice Print dialogs in illustrations."

So this indeed seems to be an upstream issue.

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

According to http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/cgi_img_auth.php/6/6b/0102GS3-SettingUpLibO.odt you can use the operating system printer dialog on a Mac:

"(Mac only) To use the standard Print dialogs for your operating system, deselect the Use LibreOffice dialogs option. When this option is selected, the Print dialogs supplied with LibreOffice will be used. This book uses the LibreOffice Print dialogs in illustrations."

There should be an option to use the operating system printer dialog (e.g. kprinter, gtkprint) on Linux. For a bug report in a downstream distribution (Ubuntu) see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org/+bug/47658

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

I created an upstream bug report at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41181 and tried to set it up as a remote bug watch in Launchpad. I am not sure if the remote bug watch was created correctly.

[Dtardon (dtardon)]

Yeah, and for bug report in Fedora see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=476039 . I really should get it in one of these days...

[Dtardon (dtardon)]

support for native print dialog for gtk and gtk3 will be in 3.5 as experimental feature

[David (david-redhat-bugs)]

it will be experimental feature in libreoffice 3.5

[Marius B. Kotsbak (mariusko)]

Now that it is solved upstream, I guess Ubuntu needs to do something to enable this feature in its distribution?