This page is about printing in GNOME. Printing is an important functionality for many GNOME users.

current status

gnome-print faq

What users are missing in GNOME

  • no advanced control about printing output (although information is in PPD files)
  • no information about ink status and no help for exchanging ink cartridges
    • there is a utility called mtink that does this for Epson inkjets. Also there is the command line utility escputil. These could perhaps be used as inspiration. --ReinoutVanSchouwen

    • There are also a number of gtk apps that could be extended to be more generic. They are: Inkblot and GMSO - CoreyBurger

online printing service

How about a simple printer driver that enables a user to print to the internet: Ability to print to rint services. Who would want that? Businesses with no good printers who would like other people to handle printing an sending (with the right envelope no problem!). Other users would be people who want to print photos. The printing process could also be like this:

  1. Click Print Button
  2. Select "Printing Service"
  3. Document is uploaded via HTTP (like flickr.com)
  4. You get a web-page where you can select what quality you want or how you want it to be printed.

I also could imagine that GNOME/KDE and freedesktop.org or linuxprinting.org provide a service which links to other services. If we could do this we could present a nice way to have high quality printing. As I see it "printing services" will be the next hype. Windows does it different today:

  • either upload files via browser
  • or you install a printing up from a print service.

I know GNOME sees itself not as a web service, but I think we should much more develop in that direction. Why? Because we then could have people switch very easy. if people use web services, it just does not matter what OS they are running. Maybe GNOME should not be the organisation to do it but GNOME should have high interest in providing such service interfaces. -- ThiloPfennig 2006-01-15 18:58:24 (see also OnlineDesktop)

applications

libraries

  • gnome-print

discussion

This topic became poplular in mid december'05 as Till Kamppeter, project leader and maintainer of linuxprinting.org posted an article in the GNOME-usability list:

The problem still is, that many (advanced) options of printers can not be used withhin GNOME, although the PPD files have all nececcary information.

The topic became even more popular as Linus Torvalds posted this followup on the same list:


CategoryUsability

Design/OS/Printing/OldResearch (last edited 2013-12-04 19:16:51 by WilliamJonMcCann)