Mandrake Linux 8.2: Installation And User Guide | ||
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This section will deal with using printers under Mandrake Linux with KPrinter.
There are two ways to print documents with KPrinter: from applications, calling KPrinter as the "print command", or from the command line. Any application which supports the definition of its printing command will be able to use KPrinter.
With KPrinter, you can set many options for printing your documents, like the output device (generally a physical, local or remote printer), the number of copies, paper size, printer resolution, etc. It runs under every window manager and desktop environment, not only KDE.
KPrinter's window is divided in three areas: Printer (selection of the device and its properties), Page Selection (selection of which pages to print) and Copies (how many copies and in which order).
In this section, you set the device where you are going to print into and its properties, like page size, resolution, etc. In the Name: pull-down list, all the available printers are listed. Just select the one you want to print to.
Press the Properties... button to change the device's options. Please note that the options available will be dependent of the chosen device.
Most options available are self-explanatory. Maybe one worth mentioning is Pages per sheet (set to 2 in the example). This lets you put up to 4 pages onto a single sheet of paper (or 8 if you print on both sides). This is a nice feature to print book drafts or other lengthy material which change often.
If you want to change printer-specific options such as the resolution of the printing device, you have to click on the Advanced tab. There, you will find the Resolution: option under some of the available categories. When you click on it, all available resolutions will be displayed in the bottom part of the window. Select the one you want from the list.
Among the many other settings available under the Advanced tab are printing modes which use much less toner or ink (search for something like "economy mode" or "toner density"). However, the output is much paler.
Once you are satisfied with your settings, press the Ok button. The Save button saves the current settings for the next printing jobs.
Under Page Selection, the following options are available:
Prints all of the document's pages.
Prints only the document's current page. This option might not be available at all times.
Allows you to specify page ranges to print. You can specify pages or groups of pages separated by commas (1,2,5 prints pages 1, 2 and 5; 1-3, 7-21 prints pages 1 to 3 and 7 to 21, etc.).
The Page set: pull-down list lets you specify pre-defined sets of pages to print (All pages, Odd pages or Even pages).
This allows you to print double-sided on a printer without a duplex unit: print the odd pages, turn the stack of printed pages over and put them back into the input tray, then print the even pages.
Use the little arrows to increase/decrease the number of copies or just type the number of copies you want to print in the Copies: field.
When you are printing multiple copies, you can check the Collate check box to print the whole document before starting to print the second copy, instead of getting all copies of page number 1, then all copies of page number 2, and so on.
The Reverse check box makes the printing start at the last page and end at the first one (the document is printed "backwards"). This option is useful if your printer leaves the paper sheets face-up in the output tray.
We will explain how to setup Galeon to use KPrinter.
For example, when you invoke Galeon's printing dialog (pressing Ctrl+P or with Printer field, as shown in figure 12-19, and click on the Print button.
-> ), all you have to do is to type kprinter in theThe procedure for other applications is similar to the one described above, so play around a little bit to find out how to tell your application which printing command to use.
From the command line, its invocation is simple: kprinter file_to_print &.
![]() | You need to be under X for the above command to work. |
Enjoy printing with your Mandrake Linux system and KPrinter!