Setting default paper size in Gnome FC5

[Gavin Simpson]

On 5/5/06, Marc Schwartz <MSchwartz at mn.rr.com> wrote:
> Gavin Simpson wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > How do you set the default paper size used by Gnome print dialogues in
> > say Evolution and Evince? It currently defaults to US Letter but
> > seeing as I am neither in the US nor have access to US Letter sized
> > paper I'd like to use A4 instead. My locale is currently en_GB-UTF8
> > and the printers I'm printing to are set to print to A4, and do so
> > when I change the paper size in the print dialogue, but I have to do
> > this everytime. Is there anywhere to change this globally in Gnome?
> >
> > TIA,
> >
> > Gav
>
> Hey Gavin,
>
> Check the output of the following in a console:
>
>    $ locale -ck LC_PAPER
>
> If the default paper size for en_GB is A4 (should be), you should see
> (note paper size measures in mm):
>
> $ locale -ck LC_PAPER
> LC_PAPER
> height=297
> width=210
> ...
>
> On the other hand, if it is US LETTER, you should see:
>
> $ locale -ck LC_PAPER
> LC_PAPER
> height=279
> width=216
> ...
>
>  From testing here on my system, which is U.S., I get the latter.
>
> If you are properly getting A4 sizes above for the locale, then it is
> possible that your CUPS configuration for the printer(s) is overriding
> the locale default. To check it, run:
>
>    $ printconf-gui
>
> You will be prompted for the root password.
>
> Select the printer in question to Edit the configuration. Then select
> the "Driver Options" tab. Review the "Page Size" setting. If it is US
> Letter there, this will override the locale default. Change it to A4 and
> click OK to save the change and close the dialogue.  Then hit the Apply
> icon to affect the change in the printer setup.  Do this for each
> printer you have configured.
>
> I presume that this basic process is unchanged in FC5 versus FC4.
>
> HTH,
>
> Marc Schwartz

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply. I'd checked the locale, but not using the
options you suggested, here's the output:

$ locale
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

$ locale -ck LC_PAPER
LC_PAPER
height=297
width=210
paper-codeset="UTF-8"

So looks like everything is OK here. I also checked the defaults for
the printer - they are certainly set to A4 in printconf-gui. But the
Gnome print dialog still insists on choosing US Letter as default.

Any further suggestions?

TIA

G