How can I auto-rotate my photos to fit properly on my photo paper when printing? (KDE4.3 / suse 11.2)
My printer photo paper holder (4x6") is portait (ie: tall) orientation. Most photos I take are landscape orientation. To get the print to orient properly to the photo paper, I have to rotate the photo 90 degrees before printing. This is okay if I only have 1 or 2 photos to print, but it is unacceptable if I want to print a batch of 10, 20, or more.
Every printer I have worked with in Windows allowed me to do this (whether it was the print driver or windows print dialogues, I don’t remember).
This is the last barrier that is not allowing me to have a happy printing experience with Linux.
I think this is a trick question
Or a mystery: Like the Continuum Transfunctioner.lol!
This is more a matter of printer settings and to be honest it puzzles the heck out of me too. Thank goodness I never bother printing anything other than an odd letter.
On Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:16:02 +0000, Dulwithe wrote:
> Hello,
>
> How can I auto-rotate my photos to fit properly on my photo paper when
> printing? (KDE4.3 / suse 11.2)
>
> My printer photo paper holder (4x6") is portait (ie: tall) orientation.
> Most photos I take are landscape orientation. To get the print to
> orient properly to the photo paper, I have to rotate the photo 90
> degrees before printing. This is okay if I only have 1 or 2 photos to
> print, but it is unacceptable if I want to print a batch of 10, 20, or
> more.
>
> Every printer I have worked with in Windows allowed me to do this
> (whether it was the print driver or windows print dialogues, I don’t
> remember).
>
> This is the last barrier that is not allowing me to have a happy
> printing experience with Linux.
>
> Thanks for any ideas you can share.
>
> D.
You could use something like ImageMagick to rotate the images you know
are portrait and need to be landscape (or vice-versa).
Some programs can auto-rotate the images for you (I think F-Spot does
this, and I’ve seen the GIMP rotate images for me automatically). This
functionality depends on your camera properly tagging the orientation
with EXIF, though - some cameras don’t do this or only do it in certain
modes (so I understand; mine does tag them properly regardless of
configuration, so it’s generally not a problem for me).
There are several combinations of layout and properties including landscape printing in Gwenview. You may find that a combination of settings achieves the desired effect.
I used to do a WHOLE LOT of digi-photography before linux. The ease of it in windows, with software that will easily rotate photos to fit page is enough to make me think of installing xp on a partition just for photography and printing.
There are programs in linux (adobe reader, for example) that will rotate pdf’s to fit the page properly. I can’t imagine this functionality doesn’t exist for jpg and other bitmap printing.
I even checked out some cups commands, but none of the ones I found helped.
> How can I auto-rotate my photos to fit properly on my photo paper when
> printing? (KDE4.3 / suse 11.2)
>
> My printer photo paper holder (4x6") is portait (ie: tall) orientation.
> Most photos I take are landscape orientation. To get the print to
> orient properly to the photo paper, I have to rotate the photo 90
> degrees before printing. This is okay if I only have 1 or 2 photos to
> print, but it is unacceptable if I want to print a batch of 10, 20, or
> more.
>
> Every printer I have worked with in Windows allowed me to do this
> (whether it was the print driver or windows print dialogues, I don’t
> remember).
It was neighter, likely. More likely to have been an option of the
application.
As suggested, try the Gwenview options. You don’t say what soft you’re
using, so we can’t check if it has options to auto-rotate. The acrobat
Reader has such an option, for instance.
> This is the last barrier that is not allowing me to have a happy
> printing experience with Linux.
Well, I don’t believe it’s Os related, but depending on the choice of
application.
–
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.
Tried gwenview and digikam and other (I don’t remember what) linux (qt and gtk) software. Most is **** compared to gwenview and digikam, but gv and dk don’t auto rotate for print like adobe will.
If you are willing to accept a 2 step process, you could check to see if an application like “birt” will 1st rotate the 90 degrees: PackMan :: Package details for birt
Then print all at once.
I know birt is great for resizing all at once, but I don’t know about rotating.
Thanks for your replies. Much appreciated. Good information for me and I’ll try some of the software and approaches you suggested.
I found the definitive answer myself by digging deeper in the Gwenview and Digikam menus.
In both Gwenview and Digikam (KDE4) there is a “print assistant”. Gwenview, plugins, image, print assistant. Digikam (I can’t remember, but I think it is under the image menu).
Anyway, printing with the print assistant will auto rotate photos to fit, and will leave correctly oriented photos as-is. Very nifty, and if you think of it, not too difficult to program. Just an “if x is greater than y, rotate 90degrees” argument.
The regular “Print” dialogue in these programs does NOT auto-rotate - hence, my original frustration. But with the “Print Assistant”, I’ll be able to print batches containing different orientation photos and have them all auto-rotate as needed and print out properly.