gnome default paper size

[David Reiser]

Both gnomeprint (the old way) and gtkprint (the new way, gtk+ >= 2.10  
and gtkhtml >=3.14, I think) hardcode a default paper size of a4.  
Those of us stuck in the non metricated hinterlands (North America,  
mostly US and Canada) would usually prefer the default paper size to  
be Letter.

If you have a full gnome setup and know where that default can be  
defeated, hurray. But I don't really want to carry all of gnome  
around to use gnucash.

In the gnomeprint days, the printing dialog contained a Paper tab  
that allowed the user to select a paper size before printing. It was  
annoying to have to remember to change the paper size everytime, but  
at least it could be done.

The gtkprint dialog has no access to paper size settings. (one  
solution that gnumeric has used is to add a Page Setup choice to the  
File menu and storing the paper size in gnumeric's preferences).  
There is another way to get the default changed. gtkprint uses  
setlocale() to check the value of the LC_PAPER environmental  
variable, if it exists. If the system doesn't support that variable,  
gtkprint checks the value of  LC_MESSAGES. As long as the first  
variable that exists in that pair returns something that starts with  
en_US, en_CA, es_PR, or one other Spanish locale that escapes my  
memory, then gtkprint will default to Letter sized paper.

So "export LC_MESSAGES = en_US.UTF-8" or similar in your profile will  
get gtkprint to use Letter instead of a4 paper.

I have not found a way to get gnomeprint to default to Letter paper.

Dave
--
David Reiser
dbreiser at earthlink.net