docs/doxygen/overviews/unixprinting.h

   1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   2 // Name:        unixprinting.h
   3 // Purpose:     topic overview
   4 // Author:      wxWidgets team
   5 // RCS-ID:      $Id$
   6 // Licence:     wxWindows licence
   7 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   8
   9 /**
  10
  11 @page overview_unixprinting Printing Under Unix (GTK+)
  12
  13 @tableofcontents
  14
  15 Printing under Unix has always been a cause of problems as Unix does not
  16 provide a standard way to display text and graphics on screen and print it to a
  17 printer using the same application programming interface - instead, displaying
  18 on screen is done via the X11 library while printing has to be done with using
  19 PostScript commands. This was particularly difficult to handle for the case of
  20 fonts with the result that only a selected number of application could offer
  21 WYSIWYG under Unix. Equally, wxWidgets offered its own printing implementation
  22 using PostScript which never really matched the screen display.
  23
  24 Starting with version 2.8.X, the GNOME project provides printing support
  25 through the libgnomeprint and libgnomeprintui libraries by which especially the
  26 font problem is mostly solved. Beginning with version 2.5.4, the GTK+ port of
  27 wxWidgets can make use of these libraries if wxWidgets is configured
  28 accordingly and if the libraries are present. You need to configure wxWidgets
  29 with the <tt>configure --with-gnomeprint</tt> switch and your application will
  30 then search for the GNOME print libraries at runtime. If they are found,
  31 printing will be done through these, otherwise the application will fall back
  32 to the old PostScript printing code. Note that the application will not require
  33 the GNOME print libraries to be installed in order to run (there will be no
  34 dependency on these libraries).
  35
  36 In version GTK+ 2.10, support for printing has been added to GTK+ itself.
  37 Beginning with version wxWidgets 2.9.X, the GTK+ port of wxWidgets can make use
  38 of this feature if wxWidgets is configured accordingly and if the GTK+ version
  39 is = 2.10. You need to configure wxWidgets with the
  40 <tt>configure --with-gtkprint</tt> switch and your application will then search
  41 for the GTK+ print support at runtime. If it is found, printing will be done
  42 through GTK+, otherwise the application will fall back to GNOME printing
  43 support if it is available or, if it isn't, to the old PostScript printing
  44 code. Note that the application will not require a GTK+ version = 2.10 to be
  45 installed in order to run (there will be no dependency on this version).
  46
  47 */