[kde-linux] Longstanding printing problems in KDE4

[Bruce Miller]

I have never been able to get a KDE 4 application to print correctly. I have tried several version of KDE 4.x on several versions of Kubuntu (7.10, 8.04, 8.10). I filed a detailed bug report on Ubuntu's Launchpad bug database (https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/284730). For everyone else's ease of reference, I have copy/pasted the full text of the bug report immediately below my signature block. Today, I reproduced one of the key elements of the report in kate under KDE 4.1.3.

None of my reports have gained any "traction". When I checked the KDE bugs database today, there were no reports of problems as drastic as mine. This leads to a conclusion that the glitch is probably somewhere in my own setup under ~/.kde. In earlier incarnations, I have sometimes backed up a .kde and started over from scratch. But it appears that the last time that I did that was March 2008. One can add a lot of customizations in eight months, and it is tiresome to think of recreating them all.

Can anyone suggest where I might start tracking down where my printing problems might be lurking in an individual's setup.

 --
Bruce Miller, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
bruce at brmiller.ca; (613) 745-1151


Traduttore traditore


Ubuntu bug report 284730
I am unable to print from KDE4 applications (primarily, but not exclusively, Konqueror and Kate). I have had this problem on several instances of Kubuntu: on different physical machines, on three consecutive distributions of Kubuntu (7.10, 8.04 and 8.10 development) and despite many more bare metal OS re-installs than the stability of Linux would justify.

This bug report follows up my reopening Bug 29622 which deals specifically with headers and footers. They have never printed from Konqueror/KDE4. The problems go far beyond this.

This bug reports testing Konqueror v4.1.2 on KDE v4.1.2 running Kubuntu Intrepid Ibex beta (from a fresh install a few days after the beta was released and fully dist-upgraded at least twice a day). I have had comparable problems printing from kate.

I am printing to an ancient HP LaserJet 4L. I am in Canada; my paper type is set to US Letter. The default margins of the printer driver are set to the printer manufacturer's specified published imageable area, namely 0.5" top and bottom and 0.25" left and right.

I tested with a blog which I read regularly: http://thoughtsontranslation.com/. I did a control by printing the same page from Firefox (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008101315 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.3). In Firefox, I used the US Letter HP LJ predefined paper size. The blog printed over six pages. All text was printed. The graphic near the top of the page did not print in either Firefox or Konqueror. The list of links in the right-hand frame printed below the central frame.

The Konqueror output was 10 pages as follows:
no headers or footers on any page
page 1: bullet list from the row of four "tabs" at the top of the page. The fourth bullet is bare;
page 2: faint outline of a search box close to the top of the page
page 3: search button from search box; heading and subheading; beginning of main text
pages 3 through 6: main text; approximately 2.75 lines of text missing in each page break (i.e. two lines missing completely, the bottom of third line visible but cut off at the top of each page)
pages 6 through 8: right frame with many links; also with approximately 2.75 lines missing in each page break
page 9: faint outline of a search box about 2.375" from top of page (cf. page 2 above)
page 10: search button; "credits" line (Blog at WordPress.com | Theme: ...

I repeat that no headers or footers printed.

This has been a consistent experience with any attempt to print from a KDE4 application under Kubuntu.

My setup is:
bruce at Xenophon:~$ uname -a
Linux Xenophon 2.6.27-7-generic #1 SMP Tue Oct 14 18:38:59 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
bruce at Xenophon:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu intrepid (development branch)
Release: 8.10
Codename: intrepid
bruce at Xenophon:~$
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