Re: [tlug] CJK Printing from Web Browsers in Debian 3.3.2

[Bart Mathias <mathias@example.com>]

Josh Glover wrote:
> On 03/11/06, Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> wrote:
>
> > [...] All is not lost, mate. Follow these steps, and you should be
> >  right as rain:
> >
> > 1. Find your preferences files for: a. Mozilla b. Firefox c. 
> > Thunderbird
>
>
> Damn you Gmail and your premature send! ;)

Well, it was a good joke on me.  "Well, *thanks* Josh!" thought I.

> As I was saying:
>
> 0. *** Quit Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird! ***
>
> 1. Find your preferences files for: a. Mozilla b. Firefox c. 
> Thunderbird
>
> find .mozilla/ -type f -name \*prefs.js
>
> 2. Comment out all existing printer-specific settings in your Firefox
>  and Thunderbird prefs files:
>
> sed -i.bak -e 's|^\(.\+intl.\+\)$|// \1|' <FirefoxPrefsFileFromStep1>
>  sed -i.bak -e 's|^\(.\+intl.\+\)$|// \1|' 
> <ThunderbirdPrefsFileFromStep1>
>
> 3. Add the printer-specific settings from your Mozilla prefs file to 
> your Firefox and Thunderbird prefs files:
>
> grep -i print <MozillaPrefsFileFromStep1> | tee -a 
> <FirefoxPrefsFileFromStep1> grep -i print <MozillaPrefsFileFromStep1>
>  | tee -a <ThunderbirdPrefsFileFromStep1>
>
> That should be all there is to it. If that does not work, or Firefox 
> or Thunderbird spews error messages (hint: run them from the 
> command-line so that debugging and error messages get printed to the 
> terminal), examine the differences between the junk that is commented
> out and the junk that you added to the end of each prefs file.

I went ahead and ran the suggested commands without studying their man
pages; I prefer to know what I'm doing, but these look like a long
study.  I've never really understood how "Abracadabra" works either.

When they didn't work--Thunderbird printed squares on a test--and the
Firefox and Mozilla prefs still looked fairly different when I opened them
side by side (Mozilla still prints Japanese OK), I shut all Mozilla
stuff down again and ran just the

sed -i.bak -e 's|^\(.\+intl.\+\)$|// \1|'
.mozilla/firefox/ucf0ouei.default/prefs.js

command again, and took another look at the file.  It reported a
last-modified time the same as when I ran the command, but nothing in
the file looks commented out.  So I went "man sed" after all, and now I
understand everything in that command except the minor
's|^\(.\+intl.\+\)$|// \1|' part.

The backup file is identical to the "sed'ed" one.  Both contain five
instances of  "...print_command"!

Then I tried setting up a user.js file in Thunderbird, copying in all of
the "...print..." lines from Mozilla's prefs file, hoping it would override
Thunderbird's prefs, but that didn't work either.

> BTW, the kprinter trick will only work if you use KDE (or have it 
> installed) and KDE apps print Japanese correctly. Otherwise, just use
>  plain ol' lpr.

I do use KDE.  A couple of years ago I was having some kind of trouble
printing which regularly changing "lpr ${<whatever>}" to just "kprinter"
cured, but I don't remember details (those last four words have become
the story of my life).

Thanks for trying.  Computers is weird.
Bart