GtkPrintOperation

## GtkPrintOperation GtkPrintOperation — High-level Printing API |

## Includes

    #include <gtk/gtk.h>

## Description

GtkPrintOperation is the high-level, portable printing API. It looks a bit different than other GTK+ dialogs such as the GtkFileChooser, since some platforms don't expose enough infrastructure to implement a good print dialog. On such platforms, GtkPrintOperation uses the native print dialog. On platforms which do not provide a native print dialog, GTK+ uses its own, see GtkPrintUnixDialog.

The typical way to use the high-level printing API is to create a GtkPrintOperation object with `gtk_print_operation_new()` when the user selects to print. Then you set some properties on it, e.g. the page size, any GtkPrintSettings from previous print operations, the number of pages, the current page, etc.

Then you start the print operation by calling `gtk_print_operation_run()`. It will then show a dialog, let the user select a printer and options. When the user finished the dialog various signals will be emitted on the GtkPrintOperation, the main one being ::draw-page, which you are supposed to catch and render the page on the provided GtkPrintContext using Cairo.

Example 35. The high-level printing API

    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10
    11
    12
    13
    14
    15
    16
    17
    18
    19
    20
    21
    static GtkPrintSettings *settings = NULL;
    static void
    do_print (void)
    {
      GtkPrintOperation *print;
      GtkPrintOperationResult res;
      print = gtk_print_operation_new ();
      if (settings != NULL)
        gtk_print_operation_set_print_settings (print, settings);
      g_signal_connect (print, "begin_print", G_CALLBACK (begin_print), NULL);
      g_signal_connect (print, "draw_page", G_CALLBACK (draw_page), NULL);
      res = gtk_print_operation_run (print, GTK_PRINT_OPERATION_ACTION_PRINT_DIALOG,
                                     GTK_WINDOW (main_window), NULL);
      if (res == GTK_PRINT_OPERATION_RESULT_APPLY)
        {
          if (settings != NULL)
            g_object_unref (settings);
          settings = g_object_ref (gtk_print_operation_get_print_settings (print));
        }
      g_object_unref (print);
    }

By default GtkPrintOperation uses an external application to do print preview. To implement a custom print preview, an application must connect to the preview signal. The functions `gtk_print_operation_print_preview_render_page()`, `gtk_print_operation_preview_end_preview()` and `gtk_print_operation_preview_is_selected()` are useful when implementing a print preview.

Printing support was added in GTK+ 2.10.

## Functions

## Types and Values

## See Also

GtkPrintContext, GtkPrintUnixDialog