Chapter 21. Printing

# Chapter 21. Printing

At the application development level, gtkmm's printing API provides dialogs that are consistent across applications and allows use of Cairo's common drawing API, with Pango-driven text rendering. In the implementation of this common API, platform-specific backends and printer-specific drivers are used.

## PrintOperation

The primary object is `Gtk::PrintOperation`, allocated for each print operation. To handle page drawing connect to its signals, or inherit from it and override the default virtual signal handlers. `PrintOperation` automatically handles all the settings affecting the print loop.

### Signals

The `PrintOperation::run()` method starts the print loop, during which various signals are emitted:

- `begin_print`: You must handle this signal, because this is where you create and set up a `Pango::Layout` using the provided `Gtk::PrintContext`, and break up your printing output into pages.

- `paginate`: Pagination is potentially slow so if you need to monitor it you can call the `PrintOperation::set_show_progress()` method and handle this signal.

- For each page that needs to be rendered, the following signals are emitted:

  - `request_page_setup`: Provides a `PrintContext`, page number and `Gtk::PageSetup`. Handle this signal if you need to modify page setup on a per-page basis.

  - `draw_page`: You must handle this signal, which provides a `PrintContext` and a page number. The `PrintContext` should be used to create a `Cairo::Context` into which the provided page should be drawn. To render text, iterate over the `Pango::Layout` you created in the `begin_print` handler.

- `end_print`: A handler for it is a safe place to free any resources related to a `PrintOperation`. If you have your custom class that inherits from `PrintOperation`, it is naturally simpler to do it in the destructor.

- `done`: This signal is emitted when printing is finished, meaning when the print data is spooled. Note that the provided `Gtk::PrintOperation::Result` may indicate that an error occurred. In any case you probably want to notify the user about the final status.

- `status_changed`: Emitted whenever a print job's status changes, until it is finished. Call the `PrintOperation::set_track_print_status()` method to monitor the job status after spooling. To see the status, use `get_status()` or `get_status_string()`.

Reference

Examples |  | Page setup