Re: cad/qcad only prints to PDF, no other options

["John D. Baker" <jdbaker%consolidated.net@localhost>]

On Fri, 5 Jun 2020, Iain Hibbert wrote:

> > I don't use QCad often so I was surprised today to discover that the 
> > only printing option available is to print to PDF.

That is, it used to print to the printer just fine, but I think this is
the first time I used it since the switch to qt5 (or at least tried to
print anything).

> I've never tried to print as I only have a printer.

???

Are you perhaps thinking the only direct hardcopy ouput device would
be a pen plotter of some kind?  It would be neat to have one, but they
are rare and expensive--even more so today.

So, a laser printer works just fine.  (Mine is even a Real Printer^{tm}
which lives on ethernet, speaks PostScript, and can duplex-print.  It
also speaks PCL and ASCII as necessary.)

> (I always use export to PDF which works for me :)

Yes, I'm sure that works, but it would be nice to avoid the extra step
to get hard-copy output.

> as far as I can tell it uses the Qt framework though, and QtPrintsupport 
> is part of x11/qt5-qtbase so should be included. However, it is normally 
> distributed as a 'bundle' with everything copied in to private directories 
> but I have broken that part up a bit and tried to make it use the 
> installed versions in /usr/pkg/qt5/plugins. I could have broken it or 
> never discovered it was missing. Do you have a 
> printformats/libcupsprintersupport.so under there? (I don't have one)

There is no "/usr/pkg/qt5/plugins/printformats" subdirectory at all let
alone a "libcupsprintersupport.so" file under it.

> I think you would have to specifically enable PKG_OPTIONS.qt5+=cups don't 
> know if there is any other printing support available in Qt5

Yes, x11/qt5-qtbase/options.mk has "cups" as a "supported" option, but not
a "suggested" (i.e. default enabled) option.

If qt5 has declared CUPS the only way to print, I consider it broken.

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