SoftMaker.com

I don't see much about printing problems for this version but nonetheless, I have one: I use Debian Sid and CUPS and the Kyocera FS-920 printer, that is a monochrome laser printer that comes with a Linux .PPD file. I've produced quite a few documents with TextMaker and I use PlanMaker but strangely I've never had a reason to print one of these until recently and then found it would not print.

I've been spoiled by the ease of printing from browsers like Opera, Chrome, and Ice weasel [4.0b10 aka Minefield] SoftMaker doesn't seem to be able to utilize one's .PPD file to get the most out of the default printer.

Curiously, I can export a text document as a .PDF file and at least have the option of using 600 dpi as a printing option. I could print the .PDF file if I could find the command to print in Xpdf, which at the moment is not working with the old print command of: lp -dKyocera_FS-920_USB_1

SoftMaker Office for Linux doesn't seem to be aware of the CUPS printing system on my Debian Linux distribution.

If someone has been successfully printing TextMaker documents from their local printer with their local printer's options available, on Debian Linux, please publish the relevant commands to put into TextMaker print setup dialog..

Thanks,

S.

I referred your problem to our developers and will inform you as soon as I have more information.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Same issue here - Ubuntu 11.04

I can produce pdf files but not print...

I am using the 64 bit trial version of 2010, revision 951

Is this fixed in revision 956?

No, not yet. I raised the priority.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Many thanks for your swift response.

So... this means that to print anything in SoftMaker 2010 we have to produce a pdf file then print that?

Is this restriction still present in 2012?

There is no Linux version of Office 2012 yet. At the moment you have to produce a PDF file and print that file from the PDF Viewer.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

I use Debian sid and xpdf to view and print .pdf files. However, xpdf is not the easiest viewer to print .pdf files from either as it seems the code to do this keeps changing:

there was:

lpr -P [my printer@ usb_1] <filename>
lpr -P[my printer@usb_1]
lp -d[my printer@usb_1] this was the last command I got to work with xpdf but never with softmaker. Presently it doesn't work with either. This is not good for non-free proprietary software. We're paying for things to work.

so..even if softmaker office for linux can only print a .pdf file what if you can't print a .pdf file with your preferred .pdf viewer, a rhetorical question I'll admit.

The answer has to be CUPS.

Why can't softmaker just use the exisitng CUPS installation plug into it as such. CUPS is a living thing gets upgraded on a regular basisa and contains all the relavent .ppd files for unix compatable printers.

In most Linux distros I would think it was a lot easier to have softmaker use CUPS and use it like my current version of firefox [iceweasel 4x] or have softmaker request that CUPS be install if it didn't find it on your system than struggling with a workable command to print based on lp.

I like Linux better than windows for lots of reasons but printing has always been a problem if you didn't own a big commercial post script printer. I have an old Kyocera FS920 mono laser printer and the .ppd file Kyocera sent with the windows stuff allowed my version of Debian to get the important features out of the printer at least.

Here's another vote for using CUPS. I have more than one printer, but SO 2010 will only print to my default.

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Regards,
Tanker Bob
Tanker Bob's Website
Reviewer for MobileTechReview

I'm using Arch Linux and am also concerned at the limited printing facilities available in SoftMaker. It seems remarkably primitive in this respect (especially for a commercial product), and surely it should be talking nicely to CUPS by now!
This really deserves some development effort or SoftMaker will lose credibility with potential users.

U12.04AMD64/Turboprint/ip1700Canon -> works well with TM2010Linux