docs/doxygen/overviews/unixprinting.h

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