Trouble Printing Cheques: Workaround

[John P. New]

On June 7, 2007 11:43 am, John P. New wrote:
> I am using GnuCash 2.1.3 on a brand new install of Mandriva 2007 Spring, on
> a VMWare (v 5.5.1) virtual machine and I am having trouble printing
> cheques. I am printing over the network from this virtual machine to a CUPS
> server. The Gnucash file is a brand new version 2.1.3 file (just the
> default accounts) with one transaction in it.
>
> Printing works for printing GnuCash reports, both in Gnome and KDE. In
> fact, printing seems to work fine generally (local, network, various
> programs) _except_ for printing cheques from GnuCash.
>
> After the dialog where the cheque format is chosen, I get a print screen
> with 3 targets: Print to file, and my two CUPS printers with no State
> comments. I can "Print to File" without problem, but when I choose either
> of the two printers, the Print button becomes grayed out, and remains that
> way even if I select Print to File again. When printing reports, there are
> 4 targets: Create a PDF document, Generic Postscript, and the two CUPS
> printers each with a State comment of 'Ready'.
>
> The terminal window shows only the following:
>
> /home/john/test2:31: element gnc-v2: Schemas validity error :
> Element 'gnc-v2': No matching global declaration available for the
> validation root.
>
> This message is repeated 6 times.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> John P. New

Well, it seems that this bug isn't related to gnucash or gnome, but to a gtk+ 
bug and CUPS.
See
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/66379
and
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gtk+2.0/+bug/114701
Note: The new cheque printing module in GnuCash uses the gtk+ print API.

The workaround that works for me is simple if inelegant. 

My situation was:
Machine A: Local computer running gnucash
Machine B: Computer running a CUPS server, serving a print queue for a network 
printer
Printer C: The network printer

Problem: The gtk+ prinitng API on Machine A can't seem to get a connection to 
network Printer C through Machine B's CUPS server.

Solution: On Machine A (the one running GnuCash), start a CUPS server and add 
Printer C to that server. The gtk+ printing API should now be able to print 
to the second CUPS server running on Machine A.

Pros: Printing cheques works to a network printer
Cons: Two CUPS servers running, and the same printer is defined twice on the 
same network

I hope this helps anyone with this problem.

John