[kde-linux] Another KDE 4.x print problem?

[James Tyrer]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Friday 30 October 2009 22:51:43 jim wrote:
>> On: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:15:29 Anne Wilson wrote:
>>> I very much doubt that your image has any orientation embedded in it.  I
>>> created a large image and tried it myself.  The print properties correctly
>>> told me that it was going to print to landscape.  Then it printed to
>>> portrait,
>>> losing part of the image.  I think this has to be an okular bug, since I
>>> frequently print to landscape in other applications.
>>>
>>> Anne
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------- Anne,
>> Thanks for the confirmation.
>> BTW, GwenView also produced the same results. The printer dialog
>> properties came up in 'Portrait' mode, I changed it to 'Landscape', but it
>> printed in Portrait anyway.
> 
> Almost certainly using shared code.
> 
They don't appear to share KDE code.  Naturally, they share the same Qt 
code, but that does not mean that the two apps would tell Qt the same 
things.

>> As stated before, XFIG, GIMP, and DISPLAY all print correctly,
>> whether the format is *.png or *.eps.
>>
> None of those use the KDE print.  Have you done a search at bugs.kde.org?  If 
> it isn't already reported it should be.  If you make a report, give us the bug 
> number, and I'll confirm that I've seen the problem.
> 
Since there is no KDE Print, this must be a Qt issue if it is a bug.

OTOH, it is possible to tell Qt which way to print:

void QPrinter::setOrientation ( Orientation orientation )

I tried this printing to a PS file.

It appears that Okular (or Qt) uses the information in the EPS file to 
determine how to print it.  It appears to me that it ignores all 
settings when printing an EPS.  So, if the paper size isn't set 
correctly in the file, it isn't going to print correctly.  So, it would 
appear that the EPS file is either wrong and could be edited or if is 
for a different size paper and there is nothing that Qt will do about that.

OTOH, I don't see why there should be a problem with a PNG image.  With 
GwenView, it is properly centered within the margins using either 
portrait or landscape.  However, although it made the image smaller to 
fit in portrait, it would not make it larger (larger than what?) to fit 
the margins in landscape (same with Okular).

I note that: GwenView would not properly open my test EPS and Okular did 
not properly center the JPG image I printed.

I also have to wonder about the size chosen for the printed JPG.  It 
appears that Qt scaled the image based on my screen resolution except 
that because it (improperly) works in mm instead of points when making a 
PS file it scaled it by .719999 instead of .72 (ARGH! perhaps the 
preferred conversion values would be a good idea here), and comes up 1 
point short on the bounding box size in both directions.  Without 
adequate control of the printed image size, I don't see that the KDE 
apps are suitable to print images.

-- 
James Tyrer

Linux (mostly) From Scratch