no simple way to print a QTextDocument in KDE(?)

[Kurt Pfeifle]

Thomas Zander wrote:
> * When I print to PDF in kprinter (exactly like I would in a qprinter) it 
> doesn't work; I get the following dialog:  (zipped jpeg)
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-release-team&m=118528280810342&q=p3

What makes you think "it doesn't work". Works fine for me, and does so
since many years.

That dialog (why did you make it difficult to access it by zipping it
down by a mere 6 kByte, BTW?) does *not* mean you currently can't print
PDFs via kprinter.

If you select "Convert", KDEPrint will transform it into PostScript
(and very likely loose some of the more advanced features contained in
the file, such as transparency). If you mark "Don't ask again" that will
be the default future behavior of kprinter when it encounters PDF. (And
if that does not work, your KDE installation is somehow faulty).

If you select "Keep", KDEPrint will hand the PDF unchanged to CUPS. CUPS
in turn will use its "auto-typing" feature for inbound print jobs, de-
termine it is a PDF and then construct a correct filtering chain and
apply it (with the end format appropriate for your actual print device).
The first stage of that filtering chain very likely (nowadays) will be
"pdftops" to transform it to PostScript (and very likely loose some of
the more advanced features contained in the file, such as transparency).
If you mark "Don't ask again" that will be the default future behavior
of kprinter when it encounters PDF. (And if that does not work, your
CUPS installation is somehow faulty).

To process PDFs that contain transparencies and other advanced stuff
in a high fidelity way is outside the scope of KDEPrint. (Someone may
decide at some future time he wants to change that, and contribute the
code to do so).

Hi fidelity (transparencies containing) PDF imaging to paper is either
the print device's job to achieve (there may be more models available
in the next few years. But even on Windows, nowadays this type of PDFs
(if it is printed correctly) has been transformed to PostScript at one
stage (where PostScript fakes the transparency by converting the concer-
ned page regions into bitmaps).

A current Ghostscript release can do the same (but of course will gene-
rate similarly-large print files when they contain such bitmaps).

Future versions of CUPS will have better PDF support built-in... but
for now it's still music of the future.

Current versions of many Linux apps have a *very* bad support for
*font* fidelity when creating and printing documents (oh, and that in-
cludes KOffice as a telling example) -- something that PostScript can
already handle since day one. So, please, while everybody is now cool
with adding new nice-to-have features to their document formats (such
as transparencies), don't let fall the the bread-and-butter issues by
the wayside (such as font fidelity) while you're working on the future
of your applications.

-- 
Kurt Pfeifle
System & Network Printing Consultant ---- Linux/Unix/Windows/Samba/CUPS
Infotec Deutschland GmbH  .....................  Hedelfinger Strasse 58
A RICOH Company  ...........................  D-70327 Stuttgart/Germany