How to change default printer settings in Firefox (GTK applications under KDE)?

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1

I’m trying to figure out how to change the default settings for my printer under Firefox. I’m mainly interested in changing the default print resolution and the pages-per-side layout setting

I can change the settings for all KDE applications through Yast2 / http://localhost:631, but I can’t seem to be able to find the respective dialog for Firefox / GTK applications.

Firefox itself doesn’t seem to have a dialog for the printer default settings; I’ve looked into about:config but all the value names are rather confusing.

Any idea what to do?

My system environment:
openSUSE 11.3
KDE 4.4.4
Printer: Brother MFC-7420

Thanks!

2

Actually, I just noticed that I can change the pages-per-sheet setting for KDE applications also only on a print-by-print basis. Is there a way to change the default setting for the KDE print dialog, for example from 1 page per sheet to 2 pages?

3

Using KDE Menu > System > Manage Printing (will start the CUPS web interface via your default browser). From here, you can click on the printer concerned (listed under ‘Printers’), then click on Administration > Set Default Options. The options presented will depend on the driver concerned.

4

FWIW, you can use lpoptions to create the default printer options in a file ~/.lpoptions

Type

lpstat -p

to get printer names and current status. Then do something like

lpoptions -d <name-of-your-printer> -o sides=two-sided-long-edge

to enable duplex printing by default.

However, I guess the GTK print manager can override this - I don’t have any GTK apps to check this behaviour.

5

Thanks for the hint!

I checked my printer settings, but there doesn’t seem to be an option for multiple-page-printouts:

 ~> lpoptions -l
PageSize/Media Size: Letter Legal Executive *A4 A5 A6 Env10 EnvMonarch EnvDL EnvC5 EnvISOB5 EnvISOB6
BrMediaType/BrMediaType: *PLAIN THIN THICK THICKERPAPER2 BOND TRANSPARENCIES ENV ENVTHICK ENVTHIN
InputSlot/InputSlot: MANUAL *TRAY1
Resolution/Resolution: 300dpi *600dpi 1200x600dpi
TonerSaveMode/Toner Save: *Off On

At the same time, I CAN choose multiple pages per sheet from the KDE printing dialog. I wonder why? And how can I change the default value?

6

I’m not sure if default options can be set across KDE4 globally. Each application communicates with the Qt4 print libraries directly (no print manager as such).

Interesting discussion along these lines here:

Has KDE 4 caught up with KDE 3 yet? [LWN.net]

7

This might also be helpful:

Using a CUPS printer from command line

8

deano,

thanks for both links, the thread is rather interesting. I suppose you’re right, since there is no print manager in KDE 4, there’s no way to setup multi-page printing, at least not at the moment.

As for GTK, it seems likely that Firefox stores the defaults somewhere, I should probably work on finding out with values in about:config are responsible for which setting.

Cheers!

9

I wanted to share this KDE4.5 Roadmap which confirms that a new print-manager is in progress.

More details from the developer here.