Users can invoke printing either by dragging an object, whether
it be a file icon or a text selection, onto the printer icon and
dropping it there. Alternatively, users can invoke printing by selecting
a print command in an application. In each case, the printing proceeds
differently.
Printing
From CDE Applications |
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A number of the CDE applications, including the Calendar Manager
(dtcm), the Help Manager (dthelp),
the Mailer (dtmail), and the
Text Editor (dtpad) have built-in
support for printing. These applications rely on the services of
the X Print Server to accomplish their printing. The X Print Server
is simply a normal (video) X Server which has been enhanced to produce
output for various types of printers including raster, PCL, and
Post Script.
When a print request is initiated from inside a CDE application
(for example by selecting the "Print ..." command from the File
menu in the Text Editor), the following happens:
The application displays a dialog allowing the user to set
generic, application specific, or printer specific printing options.
The application sends instructions to the X Print
Server. The instructions include standard X drawing requests enhanced
by page and job boundary indicators.
The X Print Server translates the instructions into
output appropriate to the target printer. The particular output
produced depends upon the capablilities of the X Print Server and
the target printer selected.
The X Print Server delivers the print output to
the printer using the normal UNIX lp
printing subsystem.
To
Support Printing From CDE Applications
In addition to the application and the X Print Server, two
programs are required to support printing from CDE applications:
the Print Dialog Manager (PDM) and the PDM daemon.
Displaying and setting printer-specific printing options are
handled in special programs called Print Dialog Managers (PDMs).
Each class of printer has its own PDM, which knows about the specific
set of options and capabilities that it offers.
A second class of programs called PDM daemons handle the tasks
of recognizing the fact that an application wants to display or
set printer-specific printing options and starting the correct PDM
for the selected printer.
In summary, for printing from CDE applications to proceed
successfully you must:
Make sure that the printers are added correctly to your system's
configuration.
Make sure that the correctly configured X Print
Servers needed to support your printer configuration are running.
The default X Print Server for CDE is Xprt.
Make sure that the correctly configured Print Dialog
Manager (PDM) daemons needed to support your printer configuration
are running. The default PDM daemon for CDE is dtpdmd.
Make sure that the correctly configured Print Dialog
Managers (PDMs) needed to support your printer configuration are
available. The default PDM for CDE is dtpdm.
Printable version
