Printer

[Ant2ne]

My printer is connected via the home network on an xp home print server. I have the printer installed in kubuntu. And I have the right driver. The printer prints just fine. But there are two functions I use a lot in windows that kubuntu doens't seem to offer.

I like the quick print or quick draft selection when I just need text printed and don't care about the quality of the print. This selection prints faster, and conserves ink. I don't seem to have the function in kubuntu.

I also like to select a block of text and send it to the printer. Particularly text from a webpage in which I don't want the entire page.

In the print dialog window I don't seem to a have options for either of these functions.

[jankushka]

Re: Printer

I like the quick print or quick draft selection when I just need text printed and don't care about the quality of the print. This selection prints faster, and conserves ink. I don't seem to have the function in kubuntu.

i think that may well depend on the driver.
so, you might find it in the drivers settings of the properties panel.

I also like to select a block of text and send it to the printer. Particularly text from a webpage in which I don't want the entire page.

i can only offer an old fashioned way of doing this.
a) open up a konsole
b) highlight the text you want to print and copy it
c) at the konsole's prompt type

cat << EOF | lp -d <printername>

d) paste the test
e) hit ctrl-d
your text should then go to the printer.
i don't know if this is any faster than copy&paste to a text editor and then print...

hth somehow
cheers

[eriefisher]

Re: Printer

When you print go into properties and select driver settings. Under driver settings select print mode. This should give you several printing options from draft(save ink) to high res photo. As for copy test to print I usually paste it into kate then print. Some web pages have a printable version so you only have to print revelant info and not all the graphics and stuff, which you can select the driver best suited for the application(print mode).

eriefisher

[Ant2ne]

Re: Printer

That is helpful. Thanks. I never would have thought to look in the driver tab. But now I see a whole list of options to play with in those settings. What is cool, is that it can save those settings 99% of the time I just want a quick draft printed. And in MS-Windows I'm allways having to specifically select quick draft from the list of possibilities as it allways defaults to normal.

I found "print selected" option. It is in the "text Settings" tab.

[Ant2ne]

Re: Printer

With further investigation, the "text settings" tab doesn't exist in all print dialogs. Which is upsetting. Especially when trying to print from webpages. That is where I most frequently want just a certain section of text.

Advice?

[mchuskie]

Re: Printer

I believe only KDE apps have those nice extensive print dialogues, so things like Firefox and OpenOffice don't.

As an aside: play around with the filters. "Multiple pages per sheet" and "poster" are brilliant options!