Chapter 18. Printing

## Chapter 18. Printing

| Note
Printing support is available in gtkmm version 2.10 and later.

At the application development level, gtkmm's printing API provides dialogs that are consistent across applications and allows us 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::PrintOperationResult` 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