Won't print in Landscape under Linux

Schematic
1

I’ve been struggling with KiCad 8 not wanting to print in landscape, no matte which options I picked.
Currently using:
Application: KiCad Schematic Editor x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 8.0.6-8.0.6-0~ubuntu22.04.1, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.1
FreeType 2.11.1
HarfBuzz 2.7.4
FontConfig 2.13.1
libcurl/7.81.0 OpenSSL/3.0.2 zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.9 zstd/1.4.8 libidn2/2.3.2 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.3.2) libssh/0.9.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.43.0 librtmp/2.3 OpenLDAP/2.5.18

Platform: Linux Mint 21.1, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, cinnamon, x11
OpenGL: NVIDIA Corporation, NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030/PCIe/SSE2, 4.6.0 NVIDIA 535.183.01

Build Info:
Date: Oct 14 2024 23:14:30
wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.74.0
OCC: 7.6.3
Curl: 7.81.0
ngspice: 43
Compiler: GCC 11.4.0 with C++ ABI 1016

I also am using a Pantum P3010DW Laser Printer.

So far the ONE work around I have found, is the printer properties dialog, I created a custom paper size, and switched the length/width values… so the software thinks I’m using 11x8.5 instead of 8.5 x 11
(im in the U.S using US Letter) this finally got it to print Landscape.

2

It’s probably something in your distro. IIRC print calls the system print action and at that point the options depends on what that action offers.

On my Linux distro normally I print to PDF first and when I print from the viewer it just does the right thing, although I can override its choice of format. So I don’t know what you have to do to make your system print action smarter.

Edit: Here’s what happens when I press the Print button. First I get this popup.

image

Then when I click on Page Setup I get this:

image

Do you not get the option to change the orientation in the second popup?

3

I had the same problem when printing a few weeks ago. My solution was to first print to pdf (or SVG, I forgot) and then use another program to generate the paper output.

I upgraded to V8.0.6 now, but then I still had V8.0.5.

Application: KiCad Schematic Editor x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 8.0.6-8.0.6-0~ubuntu20.04.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.2
	FreeType 2.10.1
	HarfBuzz 2.6.4
	FontConfig 2.13.1
	libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3

Platform: Linux Mint 20.3, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, xfce, x11
OpenGL: AMD, AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.42.0, 5.15.0-122-generic, LLVM 12.0.0), 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.2.6

Build Info:
	Date: Oct 14 2024 23:12:55
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.71.0
	OCC: 7.6.3
	Curl: 7.68.0
	ngspice: 43
	Compiler: GCC 9.4.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
4

yes i get the option… selecting landscape does not stop it printing in portrait mode.

5

try my solution and see what happens… it might save you a step or two!

6

Clever trick but I will probably have forgotten it by the time I attempt to print it out again. That usually happens less then once a year. Overall, I’m not very much interested in workarounds, but if it’s a bug then it’s worth reporting it. But I’m not generating more bug reports until I have regained the ability to test with current nightlies again, and that may be a while.

1 Like
7

Sounds like a bug in the system printer channel where it does not heed an instruction to change the orientation. I must say that I haven’t really checked if my print to landscape option works because I always print to file first, as I may view the schematic later with a PDF viewer.

8

KiCad is the only software i’ve had this issue with.

9

Maybe you could debug it by printing to PDF in both orientations and then examining the properties of the PDFs to see if they contain the required directives.

Here is the Properties panel from one of my A5 landscape schematics. As you can see the PDF stream contains indication of how it should be orientated correctly, so it’s downstream’s problem if it isn’t.

image