Setting default paper size in Gnome FC5

[Gavin Simpson]

On 5/7/06, Marc Schwartz <MSchwartz at mn.rr.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-05-07 at 09:00 +0100, Gavin Simpson wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > As a follow-up, I also checked out libgnomeprint and the settings
> > therein after a Google search suggested this. I looked in
> > /usr/share/libgnomeprint/2.12.1/globals.xml and
> > /usr/share/libgnomeprint/2.12.1/printers/GENERIC.xml. In the former we
> > have:
> >
> >     <Option Id="Media">
> >       <Option Type="List" Id="PhysicalSize" Default="A4">
> >         <Item Id="A4">
> >           <Name>A4</Name>
> >           <Name xml:lang="am">A4</Name>
> > ....
> >
> > And the latter:
> >
> > ....
> >   <Settings Id="SETTINGS-000989541673031997000001">
> >     <Name>Default</Name>
> >     <Key Id="Engine">
> >       <Key Value="gnome" Id="Backend"/>
> >     </Key>
> >     <Key Id="Output">
> >       <Key Id="Media">
> >         <Key Value="A4" Id="PhysicalSize"/>
> >       </Key>
> >       <Key Value="360x360" Id="Resolution"/>
> >     </Key>
> >     <Key Id="Transport">
> >       <Key Value="lpr" Id="Backend"/>
> >     </Key>
> >   </Settings>
> > </Printer>
> >
> > So all seems well here also. Is there a local gnome pref I need to set in ~/ ?
>
> Gavin,

Thanks Marc

> I have not seen anything definitive, however a Google search led me to a
> SuSE list where the following thread may be of help:
>
> http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2003-Jan/0343.html
>
> Thus, you may want to look at 'man lpoptions' to consider creating a
> ~/.lpoptions file.

Tried this out - I had an .lpoptions file on the problem desktop.
Added media=A4. This didn't seem to do anything to help though - US
Letter still default in evince. I didn't see anything related in
bugzilla to do with printing or paper size. As this machine is in work
and I'm at home just now, I've been running stuff via a SSH session
with X forwarding. When testing if the .lpoptions addition worked, I
tried to print a pdf in evince. As this was running from a shell I
noticed the following messages:

GnomePrintCupsPlugin-Message: The ppd file for the CUPS printer
HPColourLaserJ could not be loaded.
GnomePrintCupsPlugin-Message: The ppd file for the CUPS printer
HPLaserJ could not be loaded.

So may be this has something to do with it?

> Not sure why this would be required, as gnome-print/CUPS aware
> applications should be picking up the default configuration, unless they
> have application specific settings, which Evo and Evince do not seem to
> have from what I can tell.
>
> One other thing to consider would be to delete and re-define your
> printers, in case something got messed up there.

Given the above messages, I'll try this when in work on Monday.
>
> Beyond this, I would have to defer to others relative to what might be
> happening here, including the possibility of an FC5 bug of sorts. You
> might want to do a search of bugzilla.redhat.com to see if perhaps
> something has been posted there that might be relevant.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Marc

Many thanks for your suggestions Marc. Much appreciated,

G