This is Gimp-Print version 4.1.99a2, the second alpha release leading
up to the 4.2 stable release.  Gimp-print is the print facility for
the Gimp, and in addition a suite of drivers that may be used with
common UNIX spooling systems using GhostScript or CUPS.  These drivers
provide printing quality for UNIX/Linux in many cases equal to or
better than proprietary vendor-supplied drivers, and can be used for
many of the most demanding printing tasks.

Please read this README, and the NEWS file carefully!  Many things
have changed from previous releases.


BASIC INSTALLATION

If you have downloaded a .tar.gz file (tarball), you should follow
these directions.

To build and install the Gimp Print plug-in:

./configure
make
make install

This installs two programs: the print plugin itself (named "print") in
your system Gimp plugin directory, and a utility named "escputil" for
performing head cleaning, nozzle alignment, and other tasks on Epson
Stylus inkjet printers.  Type "escputil" for a description of the
options and functionality.

Please check our web site at http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net for
details about what is and is not supported.

Please report any problems to gimp-print-devel@sourceforge.net.

If you have installed the Gimp as a precompiled package (e. g. from an
RPM), you will need to install the gimp-devel package as well as the
gimp package.  The gimp package as supplied in most distributions only
contains what's needed to run the Gimp.  The gimp-devel package
contains additional files required to actually build new plugins.

If you have installed the Gimp from source on Linux: after running
make install, you must run ldconfig as root before attempting to build
this plugin.

Gimp-print 4.2 alpha requires the Gimp 1.2.


GHOSTSCRIPT

This package includes a Ghostscript driver that may be built, allowing
use of this software for general printing purposes.  Please read
src/ghost/README for more information, including how to build and
install it, and available options; the build procedure here merely
creates the necessary source files that you must add to your
Ghostscript source.  The directions vary for different versions of
Ghostscript.  Only Ghostscript 5.10, 5.50, and 6.51 are currently
supported.  In particular, versions of Ghostscript that are not
licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) are not supported,
and this driver may not be distributed with such a version.


CUPS

This package includes a CUPS driver that may be built, allowing use of
this software for general printing purposes.  To build and install the
CUPS driver, you must run:

./configure --with-cups
make
make install
/etc/software/init.d/cups restart

The last command varies with your operating system.  It is typically
/etc/init.d/cups, /etc/rc.d/cups, or even /etc/rc.d/init.d/cups.

Following this, you must reinstall any printers that you are using
Gimp-Print PPD's with.  Such printers may be identified in any CUPS
front end (e. g. KUPS, or via the web interface) because they look
something like this:

                EPSON Stylus Photo EX, CUPS+GIMP-print v4.1.8

If the version number (in this case, 4.1.8) does not match the version
of Gimp-Print that you are installing, you must use Modify Printer to
force the new PPD file to get installed.  Failure to do so may lead to
incorrect output and/or other errors.

You may also have problems if you have a .lpoptions file that has old
options set.  If you have problems printing, please remove any
existing .lpoptions file in your home directory and try printing
again.

If you do not wish to build the Gimp Print plugin, you must run

./configure --with-cups --without-gimp

You may also use CUPS with Foomatic.


FOOMATIC

This package includes support for the Foomatic meta-driver package.
This requires the foomatic-xml distribution.  Foomatic is available
from http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic.html.  It also will soon
(as of April 2001) be available in Debian unstable.  For best results,
use the version in cvs.

To build the Foomatic data, you must run:

./configure --with-foomatic
make
make install

The "make install" step will add the necessary data to your Foomatic
installation.  It will not create the spooler-specific data files; to
do that, you must follow this procedure:

     - examine the output of `foomatic-configure -O', and find the
       foomatic ID for your printer.

     - Run foomatic-datafile with that printer ID, the driver name
       'gimp-print', and the spooler type you wish to use.
       foomatic-datafile -h explains how to run this program.  It will
       generate a foomatic filter datafile on stdout.

     - This datafile may then be used instead of the ones from the
       linxuprinting.org website.  Follow the instructions for your
       spooler from the website to install the data file and filter.

Note that it almost never makes sense to build the Foomatic driver
without also building the Ghostscript driver.  Please read the
instructions above in the GHOSTSCRIPT section.

If you do not wish to build the Gimp Print plugin, you must run

./configure --with-foomatic --without-gimp

Please visit http://www.linuxprinting.org/foomatic.html for more
information on Foomatic.  The current Foomatic data was generated for
"Phase 2".


RECOMMENDED SETTINGS

We recommend starting with all default settings for the slider
adjustments in the Color Adjustment window.  The settings can be
adjusted as necessary for particular combinations of ink, paper, and
subject material.

We recommend use of the Adaptive Hybrid dithering algorithm in most
cases.  Ordered dithering also works very well in many cases, and is
somewhat faster, but it does not work very well with text and very
fine details (certain kinds of line art).  Fast dithering is also
quite usable in many cases.

On most inkjet printers, 600 or 720 dpi will produce very high
quality; 1200x1200 or 1440x720 dpi will produce extremely high
quality.


SUPPORT

There are four principal ways of requesting support for this package:

1) There are public forums on Sourceforge dedicated to this package.
   Please see http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=1537 for more
   information.  The Help forum is a good source of information.

2) If you have a technical support issue that does not appear to be a
   bug in the software, you can use the Tech Support Manager.  Please
   see http://sourceforge.net/support/?group_id=1537.

3) If you have found a clear bug in the package, you may file a bug
   report at http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=1537.

4) You may send mail to the gimp-print-devel@sourceforge.net mailing
   list.  This is recommended as a last resort only.


DEBIAN

The Debian packaging has been rewritten from scratch as of 4.1.4. It
is compliant with Standards-Version 3.1.1, and is lintian-clean. It
should build from source on potato, woody and sid (the packages should
also work).  There are five separate packages:

gimp1.2-print		The GIMP Print plugin. Also contains HTML and SGML
			documentation that is registered with doc-base.
cupsys-driver-gimpprint The CUPS driver and PPD files.
libgimpprint		The libgimpprint library (GIMP-Print core).
libgimpprint-dev	Headers, symlinks, m4 macro (AM_PATH_GIMPPRINT)
			and gimpprint-config needed to develop programs
			that link with libgimpprint.
libgimpprint-doc	Documentation in Info, dvi and HTML format.
escputil		The escputil printer tool.

The library symlinks will get packaged without any modification needed
to the debian packaging whatever library versioning scheme is
used. Most packages depend on libgimpprint as this will provide
translations for i18n in the future that they will use, or they
require libgimpprint anyway.


INTERNATIONALIZATION

All translatable strings are marked in the source for libgimpprint.
Two translations are available: en_GB and en_TEST (the latter for
testing only).

TODO: make sure that the tagged strings are actually translated. This
will involve some modifications to the source such as dynamically
allocating memory to hold translated structures, instead of passing
back pointers to static data. Most things are now actually translated,
but there are a few bits left to do (some of which might be obscure).


USE OF THE CVS REPOSITORY

Please read doc/README.maintaining for instructions on how to build
from the CVS repository.
