gimp/plug-ins/print

This is Gimp-Print version 4.0.4, a stable release in the 4.0 line.
Gimp-print is the print facility for the Gimp, and in addition a suite
of drivers that may be used with common UNIX spooling systems using
GhostScript or CUPS.  These drivers provide printing quality for
UNIX/Linux on a par with proprietary vendor-supplied drivers in many
cases, and can be used for many of the most demanding printing tasks.

Please read the release notes (RELNOTES) carefully, as this release
has many incompatibilities with 3.1 and 4.0 alpha releases, and minor
incompatibilities with 4.0b1.


BASIC INSTALLATION

If you have downloaded a .tar.gz file (tarball), you should follow
these directions.

To build and install the Gimp Print plug-in:

./configure
make
make install

This installs two programs: the print plugin itself (named "print") in
your system Gimp plugin directory, and a utility named "escputil" for
performing head cleaning, nozzle alignment, and other tasks on Epson
Stylus inkjet printers.  Type "escputil" for a description of the
options and functionality.

Please check our web site at http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net for
details about what is and is not supported.

Please report any problems to gimp-print-devel@sourceforge.net.

If you have installed the Gimp as a precompiled package (e. g. from an
RPM), you will need to install the gimp-devel package as well as the
gimp package.  The gimp package as supplied in most distributions only
contains what's needed to run the Gimp.  The gimp-devel package
contains additional files required to actually build new plugins.

If you have installed the Gimp from source on Linux: after running
make install, you must run ldconfig as root before attempting to build
this plugin.


GHOSTSCRIPT

This package includes a Ghostscript driver that may be built, allowing
use of this software for general printing purposes.  Please read
Ghost/README for more information, including how to build and install
it.

The Ghostscript driver also includes everything necessary to configure
use with Grant Taylor's Foomatic printing package (see
http://www.linuxprinting.org for a description of this package).


CUPS

This package includes a CUPS driver that may be built, allowing use of
this software for general printing purposes.  Please read cups/README
for more information, including how to build and install it.

If you prefer Cups-o-matic, instructions may be found in Ghost/README.


RECOMMENDED SETTINGS

We recommend starting with all default settings for the slider
adjustments in the Color Adjustment window.  The settings can be
adjusted as necessary for particular combinations of ink, paper, and
subject material.

We recommend use of the Adaptive Hybrid dithering algorithm in most
cases.  Users of four color printers may find that the Ordered
dithering algorithm is faster and produces nearly as good output.  Use
of this method is strongly discouraged on six color (photo) printers.

On most inkjet printers, 720 dpi will produce very high quality;
1440x720 dpi will produce extremely high quality.


SUPPORT

There are four principal ways of requesting support for this package:

1) There are public forums on Sourceforge dedicated to this package.
   Please see http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=1537 for more
   information.  The Help forum is a good source of information.

2) If you have a technical support issue that does not appear to be a
   bug in the software, you can use the Tech Support Manager.  Please
   see http://sourceforge.net/support/?group_id=1537.

3) If you have found a clear bug in the package, you may file a bug
   report at http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=1537.

4) You may send mail to the gimp-print-devel@sourceforge.net mailing
   list.  This is recommended as a last resort only.


USE OF THE CVS REPOSITORY

If you have a copy of the source from the CVS repository, then prior
to running configure, you must

aclocal;autoconf;automake

If you do run aclocal, beware that versions of the Gimp from 1.1.17
and earlier have a version of gimp.m4 that will create an incorrect
configure script.  The patch is as follows:

diff -u /usr/local/share/aclocal/gimp.m4~ /usr/local/share/aclocal/gimp.m4
--- /usr/local/share/aclocal/gimp.m4~   Tue Mar 30 13:49:58 1999
+++ /usr/local/share/aclocal/gimp.m4    Fri Feb 11 22:34:47 2000
@@ -134,6 +134,13 @@
           AC_TRY_LINK([
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <libgimp/gimp.h>
+GPlugInInfo    PLUG_IN_INFO =          /* Plug-in information */
+{
+  NULL,    /* init_proc */
+  NULL,    /* quit_proc */
+  NULL,    /* query_proc */
+  NULL,    /* run_proc */
+};
 ],      [ return 0; ],
         [ echo "*** The test program compiled, but did not run. This usually means"
           echo "*** that the run-time linker is not finding GIMP or finding the wrong"

If you wish to build the Ghostscript driver, you must run 'make ghost'
from top level.

If you wish to build the CUPS driver, you must run 'make cups'
from top level.

If you are building this from a release, you should not have any
trouble because the configure script will already exist.

Enjoy!