jon s.:

The information you included is insufficient for me to be of much help.

I am running windows xp on a nice dell optiplex. I believe the os is up to date. Just upgrade to ..6.8. Gimp works fine, except that I cannot print! I open a line drawing, do file, print, and nothing happens. There must be some setup or plugin I am missing. The fix must be easy, but I am stumped. I would appreciate some help.

In particular, one needs to know what printer you are using, and in what mode. Are your printer drivers up to date? Do you get any error messages? I don't know what browser you use, but most browsers will handle certain image formats natively; can you print one of those? what happens if you save your line drawing in one of the formats that your preferred browser handles natively; will it print that way?

ns

2010/2/7 jon s. :

Hi all, and thanks in advance for your help.  I am a newbie with GIMP, and usually use it for light touch up of digital photos of artwork.

I am running windows xp on a nice dell optiplex.  I believe the os is up to date.  Just upgrade to ..6.8.  Gimp works fine, except that I cannot print!  I open a line drawing, do file, print, and nothing happens.  There must be some setup or plugin I am missing.  The fix must be easy, but I am stumped.  I would appreciate some help.  Thanks,

Jon Stivers

For what it's worth, I have never been able to print from GIMP either. I have to save it to a "normal" image format, open it up in a "normal" image viewer and print it from there.

On Sun, 7 Feb 2010 23:05:19 +0100 (CET), jon s. wrote:

I am running windows xp on a nice dell optiplex. I believe the os is up to date. Just upgrade to ..6.8. Gimp works fine, except that I cannot print! I open a line drawing, do file, print, and nothing happens. There must be some setup or plugin I am missing.

I have a similar problem with a Konica Minolta 1300 that is set up on network (http port), which happens to be the default one in my system.
My workaround, if I *really* need to prin from within GIMP: - in my system there is also PDFCreator installed - I set PDFCreator as the default printer *before* starting GIMP - do whatever in GIMP
- print -> PDFCreator -> generating pdf - open the pdf and print to whatever printer

In the above case, after the click on "Print..." but just when the printers dialog comes up I select the Konica Minolta printer, the dialog hangs and I have to close it by force, giving a GIMP message about the plug-in "print.exe" which has crashed, blah, blah.

Cristi

jon s.:

I, too, am using Windows XP (though not on a Dell), and upgraded to Gimp 2.6.8 after I posted my response. Printer is a Ricoh Aficio 610, connected as a network printer through a router, printing directly using the Windows network drivers supplied by Ricoh for the printer, and it works exactly as I expect with black and white line drawings and photographs.

ns

Somewhere I what wrote:

In case my post was not clear enough, I print black and white line drawings and photos from within GIMP 2.6.8 to my printer, a Ricoh Aficio 610, directly through Ricoh network drivers running an OS of Win 98 PRO SP3.

ns

Is it possible to print to custom sizes using Gimp? I keep having failures when I try to print to a non-standard print size. Specifically trying to create greeting cards printed to a 7x10 inch format. Everything seems ok until I send the print job to my HP Photosmart C5180.

The only way I have found around it so far is to save the image and then import it into Open Office and print from there, where there are no problems.

Thoughts?

Dick

Dick Smith wrote:

Is it possible to print to custom sizes using Gimp? I keep having failures when I try to print to a non-standard print size. Specifically trying to create greeting cards printed to a 7x10 inch format. Everything seems ok until I send the print job to my HP Photosmart C5180.

The only way I have found around it so far is to save the image and then import it into Open Office and print from there, where there are no problems.

Thoughts?

For starters, what version of GIMP? What platform (WIN, MAC, Linux)? What version? Are your drivers up to date? What are you using to print from GIMP? What settings are you using in the printer driver, and in the interface to the printer driver?

ns

Using GIMP 2.6, running on Ubuntu Linux, v9.10. The printer is an HP Photosmart C5180 on my home network. I have the hplip printing package installed. I've chosen Custom Sizes from the page setup options, choosing the C5180.

The HPLIP is the latest version available.

Dick

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:52 PM, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:

For starters, what version of GIMP? What platform (WIN, MAC, Linux)? What version? Are your drivers up to date? What are you using to print from GIMP? What settings are you using in the printer driver, and in the interface to the printer driver?

ns

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Dick Smith wrote:

Using GIMP 2.6, running on Ubuntu Linux, v9.10. The printer is an HP Photosmart C5180 on my home network. I have the hplip printing package installed. I've chosen Custom Sizes from the page setup options, choosing the C5180.

The HPLIP is the latest version available.

I've never been able to print custom sizes with my HP printer and HPLIP. Not with Gimp or anything else. Anything other than the printer's built-in formats results in either cups disabling the printer, or a messed-up output. My printer is not a photo printer, it's a business-class network laser printer, so I can't even print pictures because there are no built-in picture sizes available for me to choose from. This is despite the fact that my printer has a built-in card reader and a dedicated picture-printing function. I can't even select custom sizes on the printer itself, disregarding HPLIP altogether. I've been contemplating buying a picture printer specifically for making prints of my pictures without having to drive to the store all the time.

Using GIMP 2.6, running on Ubuntu Linux, v9.10. The printer is an HP Photosmart C5180 on my home network. I have the hplip printing package installed. I've chosen Custom Sizes from the page setup options, choosing the C5180.

The HPLIP is the latest version available.

I've never been able to print custom sizes with my HP printer and HPLIP. Not with Gimp or anything else. Anything other than the printer's built-in formats results in either cups disabling the printer, or a messed-up output. My printer is not a photo printer, it's a business-class network laser printer, so I can't even print pictures because there are no built-in picture sizes available for me to choose from. This is despite the fact that my printer has a built-in card reader and a dedicated picture-printing function. I can't even select custom sizes on the printer itself, disregarding HPLIP altogether. I've been contemplating buying a picture printer specifically for making prints of my pictures without having to drive to the store all the time.

Just a suggestion, have you tried using TurboPrint, a free trial is available? It may work and is much cheaper than a new printer.

Norman

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 3:33 PM, Norman Silverstone wrote:

Just a suggestion, have you tried using TurboPrint, a free trial is available? It may work and is much cheaper than a new printer.

I'm one of those people who's a hard core open source user and sniffs disdainfully at any proprietary solution to achieve my means :) But I try not to impose these irrational beliefs on anyone else, especially on mailing lists and forums. I'd much rather saddle myself with a crappy, generic photo printer of dubious quality than try out software that might function perfectly well :)

But in all seriousness, there are other reasons to get a photo printer. My Color LaserJet might be great for documents and graphics, but it sucks horribly at printing photos. It can't do border-less printing, its colour rendering is inferior, and it costs a fortune in toner. A great HP photo printer is only $140 or so and would give me better print quality than commercial photo printing companies.

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Dick Smith wrote:

However, if the $140 printer won't print on linux, then there is lttle to be gained by purchasing one.

I always check for proper Linux support first. There are very few HP printers that aren't perfectly supported under Linux. My Color LaserJet 2840 does everything in Linux flawlessly, from printing to faxing to scanning and even remote-initiated copies (wtf is the point of that, anyways?), all over the network. I couldn't even get it to do those things reliably under Windows.

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:

And if you ever have shootout comparing that HP to the others, from my experience an Epson ink squirter will be the last man standing. An old 4 color C82 made prints of weddings good enough to sell, with closer color matching than the so called pro who farms his stuff out to the "custom lab" in his local CVS. HP's red dye is way too orange to suit me. That's how they get the brightness, yes, but that isn't a true red no matter how much ink you soak the paper with. Sadly, the C82 finally burned out its head, so there is now an NX515 sitting here, but I need to do a bit of fine tuning, the drivers are a bit old too.

That's interesting! I've been doing tons more photography lately, and Gimp has become a much more useful tool as a result. I'm definitely looking for something with good colour fidelity, so I'll have to check out the options. It's just hard to beat HP's Linux support. Even the printers they don't officially support (of which there are few) tend to work flawlessly anyways. I've been burned in this department before with cheap Lexmark printers.

On Sunday 21 February 2010, Frank Gore wrote:

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Dick Smith wrote:

However, if the $140 printer won't print on linux, then there is lttle to be gained by purchasing one.

I always check for proper Linux support first. There are very few HP printers that aren't perfectly supported under Linux. My Color LaserJet 2840 does everything in Linux flawlessly, from printing to faxing to scanning and even remote-initiated copies (wtf is the point of that, anyways?), all over the network. I couldn't even get it to do those things reliably under Windows.

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Gene Heskett

wrote:

And if you ever have shootout comparing that HP to the others, from my experience an Epson ink squirter will be the last man standing. An old 4 color C82 made prints of weddings good enough to sell, with closer color matching than the so called pro who farms his stuff out to the "custom lab" in his local CVS. HP's red dye is way too orange to suit me. That's how they get the brightness, yes, but that isn't a true red no matter how much ink you soak the paper with. Sadly, the C82 finally burned out its head, so there is now an NX515 sitting here, but I need to do a bit of fine tuning, the drivers are a bit old too.

That's interesting! I've been doing tons more photography lately, and Gimp has become a much more useful tool as a result. I'm definitely looking for something with good colour fidelity, so I'll have to check out the options. It's just hard to beat HP's Linux support. Even the printers they don't officially support (of which there are few) tend to work flawlessly anyways. I've been burned in this department before with cheap Lexmark printers.

Lexmark? Oops, sorry, but now we're both guilty, so I'll be right behind you in the line to warsh my mouth out with some of grandma's lye soap. They obviously have more lawyers than engineers, and will sue anyone who says differently. Be advised their warranty is null and void if its ever been hooked up to a linux box. Been there, learned that, but the lesson cost me a bit over 100 USD for that class's tuition.

< snip >

I'm one of those people who's a hard core open source user and sniffs disdainfully at any proprietary solution to achieve my means :) But I try not to impose these irrational beliefs on anyone else, especially on mailing lists and forums. I'd much rather saddle myself with a crappy, generic photo printer of dubious quality than try out software that might function perfectly well :)

I do under stand your point of view regarding software and Linux.

But in all seriousness, there are other reasons to get a photo printer. My Color LaserJet might be great for documents and graphics, but it sucks horribly at printing photos. It can't do border-less printing, its colour rendering is inferior, and it costs a fortune in toner. A great HP photo printer is only $140 or so and would give me better print quality than commercial photo printing companies.

I have had a perfectly good colour printer for some years but have concluded that, for good results and peace of mind at a reasonable cost, I send my photos to be commercially printed. I agree that there are reasonably priced printers readily available but the real cost of printing is in the ink and paper. For example, unless you leave your printer permanently switched, on every time you start the printer the procedure at start up uses ink. There are many other things that can happen such as clogged jets which are difficult to clean and also consume ink and, unless you buy really good quality inks which are expensive, you will probably never be really satisfied with the results.

Norman

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 3:40 AM, Norman Silverstone wrote:

I have had a perfectly good colour printer for some years but have concluded that, for good results and peace of mind at a reasonable cost, I send my photos to be commercially printed. I agree that there are reasonably priced printers readily available but the real cost of printing is in the ink and paper. For example, unless you leave your printer permanently switched, on every time you start the printer the procedure at start up uses ink. There are many other things that can happen such as clogged jets which are difficult to clean and also consume ink and, unless you buy really good quality inks which are expensive, you will probably never be really satisfied with the results.

That's very debatable, and depends entirely on the outside lab you use to get your pictures printed. Most photo labs have printers that only cover the sRGB gamut or less. For example, all the cheap photo labs (ie. WalMart, Costco, local pharmacies) use commercial printers that don't even cover the full sRGB gamut. A 4x6 picture at these places is usually $0.15 or so, depending on taxes.

Some higher end photo labs (Ritz Camera, Lord Photo, other camera retail outlets) have a printer that covers the AdobeRGB gamut, but their software and their lab techs only work in sRGB anyways. They have their workspace set to sRGB and they usually ignore any embedded colour space in your files. There's a 50/50 chance they'll either convert it to sRGB anyways (which minimizes the damage), or they'll assign an sRGB profile to your picture and ruin the colours in the process. I recently paid $0.29 at Ritz camera for a single 4x6, which is twice as much as the places I mentioned above.

Of the professional photo labs, many only work in sRGB. Some work with AdobeRGB, but these tend to cost more. The result usually looks great, but they cost significantly more than the camera retail stores. I have to wait for them to be printed and mailed (more cost), then I have to get into my big V8 diesel pickup truck and drive to the mailbox to pick them up, thereby adding yet more cost. If I'm not happy with the results, too bad for me.

Meanwhile, the high-end photo printers from Canon, HP, Epson et al cost very little initially, and they tend to cover an even wider colour gamut than AdobeRGB (closer to ProPhotoRGB in some cases). If I really care about a photo I'm printing, I can print it myself, see the results right away, and if I need to make any changes, I can do those right away and reprint immediately. This is a very nice luxury.

If I have a bunch of pictures to print and their quality isn't important to me, I'll happily drive over to WalMart and use one of those self-serve kiosks. It's cheap, it's fast, and the pictures look fine in my opinion. Not stunning, just fine (as long as I converted them all to sRGB first and don't mind losing some of the colours). I can even justify the fuel cost. But if I have a stunning picture that I spent hours post-processing, I want the luxury of being able to print it myself. I want the widest colour gamut possible, I want complete control over the process, and I want to see it immediately. This is worth the extra cost for me, and I actually find it cheaper than working with the professional photo labs.