Poster printing (one document page on several paper sheets)

Poster printing (one document page on several paper sheets)

Postby morgano » Aug 2nd, '15, 03:04

EDIT
Jump to list of possibilities below: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=10107&p=58475#p58475
/EDIT


Short question: Do someone have poster functionality in KDE print dialogue?
(Or in any other DE print dialogue?)
Well that is not the case here since a couple years.
I found the old https://blogs.kde.org/2007/10/19/how-ea ... nt-updated
"the poster tab of kprinter will *NOT* show up if you don't have the "poster" utility installed and in your $PATH. So if you want it, simply install the 'poster' package."
Dialogue image: http://cweiske.de/tagebuch/Printing%20a ... m#kprinter
Here poster as per default is installed and in path but still i find no poster tab in printing dialogue...
Have development gone backwards?
YES; Poster is listed as missing feature here https://community.kde.org/Printing/Missing_Features

There is a port of the KDE3 printer mojo which still do poster:
http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KP ... ent=163537
https://liquidat.wordpress.com/2014/02/ ... for-kde-4/

(However i note that in my case it will probably still not work as it use poster, which is not compatible specifically with libreoffice draw generated files... see rant below.)

Maybe one method is to use scribus creatively?

For the current need i just group rezize and move around content in my drawing (to get drawing printed on two A4) - easy in this case but it feels like stone age...

actually both KDE3 and KDE2.2 did poster...

There are never fixed bugs with poster (but still it worked very well) https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=132916#c5

Rant:
Spoiler:
I remember i have done this some years ago, and i think it was directly from openoffice draw when printing (mandriva linux).

Today the libreoffice draw own dialogue do not contain working poster alternatives. Trace of that other have used it, working when document is larger than printing format: http://cweiske.de/tagebuch/Printing%20a ... openoffice There seem now to be two alternative radio button options, but no way to enter parameters, plus my printer spots out an "Illegaloperatorsequence" error page when i try to use it... Another sign that it is not very tested is that at least one of the alternative choices are not translated correctly...

Web searching i find there are nifty utilities to enlarge ps and pdf documents for printing larger scale using more pages;

I fetched and installed pdfposter from https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pdftools.pdfposter/ and it works perfectly on all pdf documents i have *except* that the result file is shown completely white in all my pdf readers it source file is generated in libreoffice draw. iven if it is just a simple rectangle. (if i generate in libreoffice writer it is OK - go figure)

I also found the utility poster to be installed already on my system. It converts postscript files. So i save as postscript. Also try to convert pdf to ps. Again not working with libreoffice draw specifically...

Now i start feeling someone is pulling a joke on me but i see no candid camera...

The easy but very clumsy way out could be to convert to a large bitmap and then use http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/

But there should be a better way.

I remember that years ago poster print was a standard option in the general KDE print dialogue.
( And why could it not be a basic function of cups to do posters, as well as there do exist choice the other way: to put several document pages on each print page, and also duplex? )
Yes, in KDE3 there was. - KDE4 is not there yet, see top of this post.
Last edited by morgano on Aug 4th, '15, 11:21, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Poster printing (one document page on several paper shee

Postby doktor5000 » Aug 2nd, '15, 17:24

morgano wrote:Have development gone backwards?
YES; Poster is listed as missing feature here https://community.kde.org/Printing/Missing_Features

[...]

I remember that years ago poster print was a standard option in the general KDE print dialogue.
( And why could it not be a basic function of cups to do posters, as well as there do exist choice the other way: to put several document pages on each print page, and also duplex? )
Yes, in KDE3 there was. - KDE4 is not there yet, see top of this post.[/spoiler]


FWIW, that page was last updated in 2011 ...
For such a question, I would recommend you to ask directly upstream in the KDE forums: https://forum.kde.org/

Also, the page you linked to http://cweiske.de/tagebuch/Printing%20a ... 0pages.htm
mentions that all applications that use kipi plugins can print one image to multiple pages - maybe that still applies, e.g. try with gwenview.

A little bit offtopic but what you request is a pretty niche topic and advanced printing layout.
Most people will probably want the other way round, that is print several pages of document on one page per paper.

Also cups does not do that, it only triggers filters.
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Re: Poster printing (one document page on several paper shee

Postby morgano » Aug 2nd, '15, 17:46

Oh yes it is a filter but user should not need to care about all parts what is under the hood of the cups based printing system... ;)
Yes several document pages per paper side plus duplex is often used here.
- But poster capability is very valuable.

Linux printing capabilities was one of the things that made me move from the Microsoft systems mess
Print in any way you like from "any" program or standard printable file, to any local or remote printer, or file or pdf or ps - all much more easy than on any other system.
I remember poster printing from any app was a big argument and could still be if just people know it. We have used it for large temporary signs, etc. Could save an hour work per year.

I find it strange that such a once working feature got dropped.
I first thopught my systems was borked somehow, or there is another way nowadays i needed to install.
Now i learned it really is no more as easy, but there are workarounds

The best i found for pdf:s is https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pdftools.pdfposter/
Seem to work great for *most* files, just not the one i need it for...
More under the [RANT] button above
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Re: Poster printing (one document page on several paper shee

Postby doktor5000 » Aug 2nd, '15, 19:50

Just a side note: Surely you can rant as much as you want, but that won't solve the problem.
Nor will that probably motivate anybody to write such a program.

If I were you, I'd try to ask: http://stackoverflow.com/users/359307/kurt-pfeifle
As he humbly describes himself "I happen to know a thing or two about printing, PDF, PostScript, PJL, Fonts and related stuff."
So so true.

FWIW, I did a quick search, and you probably only have that issue when trying to print .pdfs that way.
raster or vector images might be easier. Check e.g. http://askubuntu.com/questions/18698/pr ... s-of-paper

Some more links:
https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/v ... hp?t=62354
http://superuser.com/questions/45831/mu ... r-from-pdf
http://superuser.com/questions/30955/ho ... ller-pages
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/luc ... ter.1.html
http://superuser.com/questions/205943/p ... iple-pages
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Re: Poster printing (one document page on several paper shee

Postby morgano » Aug 3rd, '15, 17:12

OK i did not mean to rant and it was a mistake to hide some findings in the first post.
Of course help to improve everywhere is welcome most places... ;)
There do exist methods less elegant today than the old, and i have read most you found already and i would like to list them for others to find. Better now below.
I got a bit frustrated because it used to be trivial, but now missing from printer dialog, 1) below seem currently broken in libreoffice draw, and 2) and 3) borked when using them on draw output (but tested OK on writer outputs - strange)

1) Posterise directly from the program. Only a few programs supports this, and in them you often must draw/resize in the final real world size before printing, then the program distributes it on multiple sheets of paper.

2) Print to pdf file and use the python utility https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pdftools.pdfposter/ This seem to be the most updated utility for linux for this. And very versatile.

3) Print to postscript file and use the same "filter" that KDE3.x and KDE2.2+ used automatically, but now from command line: poster. It seem actually to still be installed by default. Try entering " poster --help "

4) Possibly install KPrinter4 - it aims to bring back this functionality like the KDE2.2..KDE3.x had http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KP ... ent=163537

5) For drawing programs, manually resize and move content around in the program into the printing page area and print one page at a time.

6) Convert to bitmap image (much can be said on how to do that) and then use http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/

7) do it on a KDE3 system where poster is an option in printing dialogue. (i.e elder mageia in virtualbox or multiboot)

8) there also exist programs on MSWindows system that can posterise.
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Re: Poster printing (one document page on several paper shee

Postby rodgoslin » Sep 4th, '20, 08:51

I think you'll find what you want in Posterazor, in Mga 7. A very useful application. It creates a file in pdf format. each page is of the original graphic file cut into the required number of sheets, with an overlap, controllable in size from sheet to sheet. You do, of course require a pdf reader with the ability to print out. I think okular does provide this function
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