Landscape Printing Directly from Google Chrome in Ubuntu Does Not Work Properly.
Apparently, this is either a bug in Google's implicit handling of printing hardware or Google is trying to reinvent how browser software interacts with printer hardware.
Either way, it's a problem for users today. There is a workaround noted below.
This does not appear to be an Ubuntu or Linux or CUPS problem. Individuals on other OS platforms appear to be having this problem, too. I have to tell you, this one was a real pain to deal with in a timely manner. I wasted about two hours trying to get this to work properly only to find out Google's Page Setup feature has what I consider to be a bug. It is interesting to note, some offer it might not be a bug: they wonder if it isn't Google trying to reinvent the wheel. Either way, it's an issue for me. I just want Page Setup to work like Page Setup. You know what I'm talking about, right? Page Setup "sets up" the softcopy properly so that it prints to hardcopy correctly.
Page Setup is Page Setup - not, Page Kinda-Setup. It would surprise me, though. With Google Cloud Printing already here there may be some strange, mystical reason for all this mess. The suspense is killing me.
Anyway, here's what worked for me.
Problem
Google Drive (formerly Google Documents) Users may have a problem printing documents with landscape orientation. When attempting to print a GoogleDoc formatted with landscape orientation from within the Google Document Editor while using Google's Chrome Browser, hardcopy prints are not oriented on the paper properly.
The incorrect printing result is as follows: Landscape copy is printed to hardcopy as if it were formatted for Portrait, causing the intended printcopy to be flipped 90 degrees and run off the page to the right (while holding the printed page in front of you in Portrait Orientation.)
All settings are set properly by the user in Chrome and the Google Document Editor and Chrome's Print Preview window reports the intended Landscape Orientation properly in it's Graphical User Interface.
It appears that when users go to File --> Page Setup and set their selection within the dialog box to Orientation --> Landscape these settings are received by the Chrome browser but are not sent to the printer.
This occurs on my Ubuntu 11.10, Intel Machine:
This occurs on my Ubuntu 11.10, Intel Machine:
| Google Chrome | 21.0.1180.89 (Official Build 154005) |
| OS | Linux |
| WebKit | 537.1 (@126646) |
| JavaScript | V8 3.11.10.20 |
| Flash | 11.3.31.232 |
| User Agent | Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/537.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/21.0.1180.89 Safari/537.1 |
The Interesting Discussion on the Web
This Google Group discussion talks about this particularly strange problem and offers some solutions. This also seems to be related to the same base problem.
The Not-So-Solution Solution
Google must address this problem and provide a solution. Individuals at Google are apparently aware of this issue and are, hopefully, working on a fix for this problem. Since it appears that this Google Group was discussing this matter back in February of 2011, it apparently remains unsolved as of this writing (Sept 5, 2012).
The Work Around
Users of Google Documents can edit and format their documents as usual in the Google Document Editor and then go to: File --> Download as --> PDF Document (.pdf). This will automatically convert and download the document to the User's local hard drive where they can open the PDF File with a PDF File viewer and then view, format and print to their local printer normally.
It should be mentioned that some individuals have had issues with their Google Doc's rendering incorrectly within their PDF File viewers. Some of these issues may be related to Google's formatting of documents while other issues may be solved by upgrading PDF File viewers to their most recent versions.
GooBuntoo Folks
Ubuntu users should note that the default PDF File viewer installed with Ubuntu 11.10 (Natty Narwahl) worked well for me. So, I'm assuming this will work for Ubuntu 11.10 and better. The Google Doc opened as expected and printed to my local printer properly.
Patrick Flaherty is an Architect, Writer, Psuedo-Software Developer, Big-Time Problem-Solver and a Tech-Sci Guy who likes spending lots of time in front of computers, making them go.
Learn More
Google and Google Products are worth taking a look at, if you haven't already.
Google Drive (the old Google Documents) is here.
Patrick Flaherty Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved
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