Re: Need quick help: Let the print output of all GTK apps be PDF

["Matthias Clasen" <matthias clasen gmail com>]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Till Kamppeter
<till kamppeter gmail com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> on the Printing Summit in Atlanta in 2006 it was decided that the standard
> print job format should be PDF and not PostScript any more, as this has many
> advantages for the printing workflow, especially reliability and quality.
>
> Recently the needed CUPS filters for the PDF printing workflow were
> developed and now I have completed the implementation onf the PDF printing
> workflow on the server side in Ubuntu Intrepid. Also the KDE apps in
> Intrepid send PDF to CUPS when the user prints,
>
> I have looked into the printing code of GTK+ and it looks for me as this
> code iscapable of producing PostScript or PDF to send to a print queue. GTK
> applications usually send PostScript to the printer. I would like to do a
> simple operation in the configuration of the GTK library (or a small patch)
> so that all GTK/GNOME apps output PDF on "File"/"Print".
>
> Can someone help me quickly how to proceed? Thank you very much in advance.
>

You probably want to start at modules/printbackend/cups/gtkprintbackendcups.c:
cups_printer_create_cairo_surface

That function has a comment:

  /* TODO: check if it is a ps or pdf printer */

And then, you need to create a pdf surface if it is a pdf printer.


Matthias