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