GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 524615
Print not to scale
Last modified: 2008-10-23 05:52:18 UTC
Please describe the problem: Under Gimp 2.4.5 for Windows (XP), i can not print a picture to scale. Tried with two different PC and two different printers. Steps to reproduce: 1. Load a picture 2. Change the Printing Dimensions (Image, Printing dimension, 100x75mm) 3. Go to the Print menu, on the preview screen all seems fine: the picture is on the correct scale 4. Print Actual results: The result will be that the upper left corner of the picture will be zoomed and printed. Expected results: Does this happen every time? Yes Other information:
*** Bug 535187 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 536545 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 537615 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 540216 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I have the same problem with Canon PIXMA ip4500.
This also occurs with an HP LaserJet 3800n using postscript and gimp-2.4.[56] on WinXP with GTK+ 2.8.9. Load a jpeg. Go to Image->Scale Image and set the DPI to allow the jpeg to print on an 8.5x11 sheet. Go to File->Print, the scaled image does not print according to the DPI of the image, it comes out way too large. Saving the jpeg as a postscript file (File->Save As) will preserve the proper scaling and the resulting postscript file will print properly using ftp to send the file to the printer.
*** Bug 528574 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I have the same problem with my HP psc 1350 all-in-one. I've tried to modify not only the printing dimensions but image dimensions and still no way. I'll try the "postscript file" suggestion above but I think Gimp's creators should make a patch or something to fix this problem. I'm starting to read on the Internet other people saying "Gimps's not so goo for printing". It's not true! Gimp's excellent for printing too...it's just a bug of the moment! Waiting for the "magical patch" for this printing problem I must say thank you to Gimp's creators for all they do.
*** Bug 550329 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 552546 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 553549 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I have this problem with my Epson 1290 - no amount of fiddling with image, print or paper sizes will send the correct data to the printer. Preview shows that only about the top 1/8th of the image is being printed and expanded to fill the whole A4 sheet. Actual printing confirms this. Installers for version 2.4.5 and 2.4.7 both give the same result.
This bug is always present on the 2.6.0 release. A workaround is to use the print plugin of the version 2.2.17 that is the last working version on Windows...
"A workaround is to use the print plugin of the version 2.2.17 that is the last working version on Windows..." That would be fine if I a) had version 2.2.17 and b) knew how and where to i) find this plugin and ii) knew how to install it ! And how can version 2.2.17 be "the last working version on Windows" when the current working version is 2.4.7? 2.4.7 IS working on Windows, apart from this printing bug!
Created attachment 119839 [details] print plugin of the version 2.2.17 under windows
The workaround is to copy the file attached in my comment #15 to the following place: c:\program files\gimp-2.0\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins And to avoid having two print options under the Gimp menu, on the same folder (...\plug-ins) rename the file print.exe to print.exe.bug I agree with you, the version 2.4.x and 2.6.0 are working under Windows and have been improved a lot compared to the version 2.2.17. (Big thanks to the developpers for the very good job) I was speaking about the version of the print plugin.
Are we heading to a record or something? This bug has 8 duplicates is 7 months old and is still UNCONFIRMED?! :-) Anyway, I have the same problem as you all. The printer doesn't really matter. Even printing to pdf causes the same effect (primoPDF). I managed to print correctly after setting the resolution to 1400 pixel/in (yep, you'll have to set it every time, so it's a nasty workaround). Could someone test it? Please don't waste paper, just print it to a file or something... For me: Image: 1275x1723 Paper: A4 Working resolution: 1400 pixel/in I think in windows gimp is misunderstanding the printer resolution and thus sending a *huge* page. Also some remark I wrote in the duplicate bug entry: (so everything is here) When printing (using the work around configuration from above) the print preview shows a tiny image in the middle of the *apparently* huge printer page. If I don't align it to the top-left margin, and leave it in the middle of the *huge* page, it get's printed *only* 1 cm to the right in the resulting page. I would have thought it shouldn't get printed at all, as it should be way out of margin.
UNCONFIRMED vs. NEW doesn't really have much meaning in this bugzilla. But sure, I can change it to NEW if it makes you happier.
First, running the winprint.exe fouled up as my Gimp is on F:/programfiles/gimp and not C:/ ditto, so it couldn't find libglib-2.0-0.dll, so I uninstalled Gimp 2.4.7 from F:/prog etc, and reinstalled it into c:/prog etc (I'll need to shift it away from C: after as C: is tight for room, and I don't keep programmes on c:) I renamed print.exe as print.exe.bug as suggested. winprint.exe still fouled with the same error message "couldn't find the dll" So I copied the dll to several other folders, but winprint.exe still fails, even after rebooting the PC! libglib-2.0-0.dll is sited in c:/programfiles/Gimp-2.0/bin as is gimp-2.4.exe and all the dll files. So why is winprint.exe NOT finding it?
See now what you did, Stephane... David, as winprint is not part of GIMP any more, it's pointless to discuss it here in bugzilla. Copying DLLs around mindlessly is a usually wrong and and only leads to messing things up even worse. David and Stephane, please take the winprint discussion to private mail.
Tor Lillquist, This IS a Gimp problem - that is, if its got any hope of being used in the non-linux world! If the wretched software is incapable of printing in an environment/OS, then its useless. Trying to solve this problem IS a valid topic. My copy of Gimp certainly did have a file print.exe. Solving its failings is a valid topic. If Gimp writers aren't interested in making their products work, then we might as well say "Stuff Gimp" and the world will be all the poorer for it. If you wish stop people trying to make software work, then you are a less-than-helpfull character, and as a result, I will certainly try my best to deter people from adopting Gimp, as its authors appear to be insular, selfish and a self-centred bunch of geeks. Enough other folk are suffering from the problem of badly written software that cannot print, so why should YOU be allowed to stop them asking for a resolution? Why should YOU jump on the one person who has tried to resolve this? And if you don't like us all commenting on it - tough!
Nobody is forcing it to use it, in the non-Linux world or on Linux. There are alternatives. GIMP is not desperate for "market share". People who work on GIMP do it because they find it fun. Nobody gets paid to do it. Feel free to use PaintShopPro, Photoshop, etc instead, GIMP developers don't mind. Printing is not the main use GIMP is intended for. If printing is the main thing you would use GIMP for, you are using the wrong application. I am not jumping on Stephane. I just pointed out that any further discussion about winprint is pointless here in bugzilla. Feel free to set up your own winprint mailing list.
Umm .. Tor, "Printing is not the main use GIMP is intended for." True - photo / picture work is. But - how do we print our masterpiece works without using printing from Gimp? I use Linux BTW. (IMHO, of course you want "market share" where this means 'as many users as you can'. There won't be a Gimp with no users.) Throughout all bug reports I have not detected any 'enthusiasm' to correct printing problems. No 'we're working on it' posts. Is the problem being worked on? Please don't treat us like mushrooms. David
Unless you mean gtk+ (linux) who emphatically say it is Gimp's problem. David
But printing IS what most users of any photo editing programme are wanting! Only a few are ever going to project their pictures. And for sending pix over the net ANY old software would do - thats not a high quality requirement, but Gimp IS a high quality programme, and turning out high quality prints is the most desirable thing for a picture editing programme. I've been recommending Gimp to people as a better prog than PSP and Photoshop Light, with which it IS in fierce competition, especially with the horrendous price of CS2 etc. Even PSP is the best part of £100, and Gimp is light years better, better in some respects that CS2 even, and it is good to get people away from being wedded to MS and Win, and onto Open Source software and eventually onto Linux itself. But things DO have to work! Bugs and unexpected hiccups can be guarranteed to put most modest users of anything well and truly off! vid the article in the current LXF. Linux isn't just for geeks! Its for everyone! We WANT Open Source and the Linux OS to win people over and away from MS, and the moneyed rackets those things promote. It doesn't matter whether you do something for love, or for money - either way, you should try to do the very best possible - the customer/user deserves it. If you put something out into the world, its not just your own interests that become the sole reason d'etre - the recipients matter.
Tor, As a gtk+ developer - do you have anything to do with Gimp development? gtk+ is the printing end - Gimp uses t (as in MS it uses winprint). So are you addressing Gimp or gtk+/winprint? It is a printing problem according to the Gimp developers - hence they bumped some bug reports to gtk+. Which makes it your problem as a gtk+ developer. As for winprint, I cannot speak. Just who's problem is it - or is this a 'pass the buck' war between Gimp and gtk+?
> But - how do we print our masterpiece works without using > printing from Gimp? By saving them as PNG, JPEG, TIFF or even BMP and printing from some other application? Shouldn't take more than ten seconds. This of course is what is technically called a workaround, I am not saying this how it *should* be. But if you print out images, say, a couple times a day mostly, this shouldn't be too hard. Note again that I never said this is the ideal situation. It's a workaround. > of course you want "market share" where this > means 'as many users as you can' Which part of "work on it for fun" implies wanting 'as many users as you can' ? > Throughout all bug reports I have not detected any 'enthusiasm' > to correct printing problems. Exctly. Enthusiasm and inspiration is what is needed when we are talking about people who work on this in their spare time. Do you think whining without any offers to actually help raises enthusiasm? This is all open source, you know. Nothing prevents people who know programming from checking out the GTK+ source code and start fixing the printing problems on Windows. The code is plain C, so it shouldn't even be that hard to people who know C++, which after all is supposed to be a widely used language on the Windows platform. > gtk+ (linux) who emphatically say it is Gimp's problem Umm, GIMP let's GTK+ handle the low-level details of printing. GIMP has no platform-specific printing code. All Windows-specific code for printing is in GTK+. So where does gtk+ say this is GIMP's problem? > But printing IS what most users of any photo editing programme are wanting Then they should (so far) use something other than GIMP, at least on Windows. Plain and simple. > Linux isn't just for geeks! What has Linux got to do with this specific bug, which is about printing problems on Windows? > We WANT Open Source and the Linux OS to win people over and away from MS Yes. So isn't it good then that GIMP works badly on Windows so that people want to use it on Linux instead? (That was tongue-in-cheek.) > do you have anything to do with Gimp development Check the ChangeLog. I do contribute small things to GIMP now and then, but not much lately. The thing I tried last to implement in GIMP turned out to be much harder than expected so it didn't go well. > So are you addressing Gimp or gtk+/winprint? How many times need this be repeated? Winprint is not part of GIMP any more. This bug is about printing in GTK+. (If you want to "resurrect" winprint *and* offer to maintain it for at least some years, please take it up on the GIMP developer mailing list.) > Which makes it your problem as a gtk+ developer. Exactly. That's why this bug's "Product" field says "gtk+". This is "my problem" like the hundreds of other bugs open against GTK+ on Windows. So?
Q:"So where does gtk+ say this is GIMP's problem?" http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=550329#c9 "... Obviously the gimp developers did not want to deal with this bug and passed it on." I have chosen to ignore the rest of your comments.
*** Bug 555685 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 557214 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
After some hacking Sven came up with a patch to GIMP that fixes the scaling problem on Windows and keeps it working as before on Linux, yay! I guess it is not perfectly clear where the actual bug is, whether GTK+ is working as documented or not. But anyway, as the problem can be fixed in GIMP let's do that instead of risking breaking other apps that have perhaps come to rely on GTK+'s current behaviour.
Fixed in trunk and gimp-2-6: 2008-10-22 Sven Neumann <sven@gimp.org> Bug 524615 - Print not to scale * plug-ins/print/print.c: set the unit for dimensions on the Cairo context used for printing to GTK_UNIT_PIXELS. * plug-ins/print/print-draw-page.c (print_draw_page): changed the Cairo scale factors accordingly. Seems to fix printing on Windows.
*** Bug 557521 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***