GtkPrintOperation is the high-level, portable printing API. It looks a bit different than other GTK+ dialogs such as the #GtkFileChooser, since some platforms don’t expose enough infrastructure to implement a good print dialog. On such platforms, GtkPrintOperation uses the native print dialog. On platforms which do not provide a native print dialog, GTK+ uses its own, see #GtkPrintUnixDialog.

The typical way to use the high-level printing API is to create a GtkPrintOperation object with gtk.print_operation.PrintOperation.new_ when the user selects to print. Then you set some properties on it, e.g. the page size, any #GtkPrintSettings from previous print operations, the number of pages, the current page, etc.

Then you start the print operation by calling gtk.print_operation.PrintOperation.run. It will then show a dialog, let the user select a printer and options. When the user finished the dialog various signals will be emitted on the #GtkPrintOperation, the main one being #GtkPrintOperation::draw-page, which you are supposed to catch and render the page on the provided #GtkPrintContext using Cairo.

The high-level printing API

static GtkPrintSettings *settings = NULL;

static void
do_print (void)
{
  GtkPrintOperation *print;
  GtkPrintOperationResult res;

  print = gtk_print_operation_new ();

  if (settings != NULL)
    gtk_print_operation_set_print_settings (print, settings);

  g_signal_connect (print, "begin_print", G_CALLBACK (begin_print), NULL);
  g_signal_connect (print, "draw_page", G_CALLBACK (draw_page), NULL);

  res = gtk_print_operation_run (print, GTK_PRINT_OPERATION_ACTION_PRINT_DIALOG,
                                 GTK_WINDOW (main_window), NULL);

  if (res == GTK_PRINT_OPERATION_RESULT_APPLY)
    {
      if (settings != NULL)
        g_object_unref (settings);
      settings = g_object_ref (gtk_print_operation_get_print_settings (print));
    }

  g_object_unref (print);
}

By default GtkPrintOperation uses an external application to do print preview. To implement a custom print preview, an application must connect to the preview signal. The functions gtk.print_operation_preview.PrintOperationPreview.renderPage, gtk.print_operation_preview.PrintOperationPreview.endPreview and gtk.print_operation_preview.PrintOperationPreview.isSelected

are useful when implementing a print preview.