Setting Default papersize for printing in Kioks Wizard

New features which should be implemented in Porteus Kiosk Edition and the kiosk wizard.
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BertM
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Setting Default papersize for printing in Kioks Wizard

Post#1 by BertM » 11 Mar 2016, 15:29

Would it be possible to set the Default Paper Size in the printing options in the Kiosk Wizard?

Currently, the default is "Letter" which, I have been told, is used in North America.
A very large part of the world uses ISO standard paper sizes, such as A4.

It would be nice to get rid of the annoyance where the user has to change paper size on each and every print command.

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fanthom
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Re: Setting Default papersize for printing in Kioks Wizard

Post#2 by fanthom » 11 Mar 2016, 16:27

Hello BertM,

Printing drivers are different and its not possible to cover all configurations in the wizard.
If you are using Firefox then you could setup printing under any Linux, change paper size to A4 in printing dialog then extract relevant preferences from $firefox_profile/prefs.js.

Here are the ones for my Canon printer (paper size changed to A4):

Code: Select all

user_pref("print.print_bgcolor", false);
user_pref("print.print_bgimages", false);
user_pref("print.print_duplex", 0);
user_pref("print.print_evenpages", true);
user_pref("print.print_in_color", true);
user_pref("print.print_margin_bottom", "0.500000012107193");
user_pref("print.print_margin_left", "0.500000012107193");
user_pref("print.print_margin_right", "0.500000012107193");
user_pref("print.print_margin_top", "0.500000012107193");
user_pref("print.print_oddpages", true);
user_pref("print.print_orientation", 0);
user_pref("print.print_page_delay", 50);
user_pref("print.print_paper_data", 0);
user_pref("print.print_paper_height", " 11.69");
user_pref("print.print_paper_name", "iso_a4");
user_pref("print.print_paper_size_type", 1);
user_pref("print.print_paper_size_unit", 0);
user_pref("print.print_paper_width", "  8.27");
user_pref("print.print_resolution", 300);
user_pref("print.print_scaling", "  1.00");
user_pref("print.print_shrink_to_fit", true);
user_pref("print.print_to_file", false);
user_pref("print.print_to_filename", "/root/mozilla.pdf");
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_bottom", 0);
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_left", 0);
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_right", 0);
user_pref("print.print_unwriteable_margin_top", 0);
user_pref("print_printer", "kiosk-printer");
Once you have all settings then you can use 'browser_preferences=' parameter:
http://porteus-kiosk.org/parameters.htm ... references

Hope that helps.
Please add [Solved] to your thread title if the solution was found.

BertM
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Re: Setting Default papersize for printing in Kioks Wizard

Post#3 by BertM » 23 Mar 2016, 15:32

Fantom,

Not really the answer I was hoping for.
Assuming I'm able to figure out how to do this, it would only work for Firefox, and we are using Chrome.
Is there a similar way to do this for Chrome?
Would I have to do this for every kiosk that I install?
Will it still work the same way in any newer version?

I understand that drivers are different for different printers, but I am not asking to set any advanced features from the config file, just the default paper size.
Considering the fact that the current default is only used in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico (where less than 7 percent of the world population lives) I can hardly imagine I am the only one having this problem.

Now, the users of the kiosk need to change the paper size setting for each and every printout, and if they forget, not all printers will be able to print when the paper size is set wrong.
Sometimes, there is no other solution than to turn the printer off and back on again (to flush the job in printer memory) to allow new print jobs to be printed.
The fact that the default paper size is wrong also prevents one from configuring silent printing.

I think that lacking something as basic as setting paper size is a showstopper for any serious software (at least for more than 93 percent of the world population).
That is why I hope that this option will be available in any future version of the kiosk.

Thanks for the info anyway.
I guess I will try to figure out how to do something similar for Chrome.

Kind regards,
Bert

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Re: Setting Default papersize for printing in Kioks Wizard

Post#4 by fanthom » 23 Mar 2016, 21:07

Solution I posted is only available at the moment.
If you use Chrome then you should switch to Firefox (Chrome is no longer developed for 32bit Linux anyway - Google's decision).
Please add [Solved] to your thread title if the solution was found.

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