Bugzilla – Bug 148707
Default paper format should be A4
Last modified: 2007-06-01 07:17:34 UTC
Lots of applications (Evolution, Mozilla, ...) default to "Letter" paper format even if the version has been installed with German or other languages that are not official in the USA. "Letter" and "Legal" paper formats are a fad of the USA and aren't available elsewhere, the rest of the world uses 210 mm wide by 297 mm tall "ISO A4" (formerly DIN A4) paper, and an operating system shipped worldwide should ship with defaults that suit most of the world, rather than the peculiarities of a particular country. Perhaps country-specific global settings can help organize this mess. Affected applications are many, among them Firefox, Evolution and other prominent desktop applications.
Ah! For each version we get again this same bug report ;-) The reason is that there can be only one default paper size in an application software RPM package (i.e. those which is set during compile time when the package was made). What the default is, depends on how the particular package was made (e.g. if the code comes from the US the default may be Letter and otherwise it may be A4). Therefore it is inconsistent in different applications. What the real solution is: The print engines in the applications should ask the CUPS printing system for the actual defaults of the queue to which the user actually wants to print because this is the only way which results the real facts and which matches to the printer to which the printout should be actually sent. As long as the applications ignore CUPS and make the printout on their built-in assumptions the mess will never end. I think this cannot be solved for 10.1 but it is a long known problem which will solve automatically as soon as the applications really work in compliance to CUPS. I ask our Mozilla maintainer for info regarding Mozilla.
I add the Evolution maintainers to Cc (I cannot have a second addess for NEEDINFO) so that they can comment regarding Evolution.
This bugreport makes only sense per application. For mozilla related applications there is bug 65482 (I'll open it for public now) As Johannes said, the only good way is to get the default paper size from cups but this has to implemented (in most cases upstream).
A few remarks: 1. Cloning the bug per application is fine with me. 2. There is no reason why any software would default or fall back to a format other than A4. Letter format paper has a lot of disadvantages compared to A4 that I am not going to iterate, and "Letter" (or printing labels from Mozilla.org applications for that matter) is a niche market. Many more than 150 countries use A4. If querying the actual print queue can dig up real information, all the better, but the problem is not limited to Mozilla.
I fully agree with comment #14. In particular all our PPD files have A4 as default media size if this media size is available in the PPD (some printers don't have A4, e.g. some small format photo printers only up to something like 10x15cm). Matthias, if you like to have all applications which don't ask CUPS to have A4 as default/fallback paper size, plase file seperated bug reports for each application or provide at last list of the applications which you have detected that don't have A4 as default/fallback paper size, then I can make the bug reports. For KDE and/or Gnome only two such bug reports should be enough because all (oar at least almost all) KDE and/or Gnome applications use the same KDE and/or Gnome printing engine so that it should be sufficient to have A4 as default/fallback in the KDE and/or Gnome printing engines. I am waiting for a comment from the Gnome maintainers.
A typo in comment #5: I meant comment #4.
Will do, although this will take a while. I'll file them as they appear.
Filed bug #154983 to have the Evolution part seperated. An addendum to comment #1: If an application cannot or does not want to be linked with CUPS, the application can use the locale setting of the user who runs it (in particular the "teritory" part of the locale) to determine a reasonable default/fallback paper size and if even this fails (or is not possible) it should use A4 as fallback paper size.
Adobe Reader also uses Letter as fallback paper size, see bug#163163.
*** Bug 209355 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Will this be fixed in next GW client ? Having A4 set as default size in cups doesn't make it in anyway in GW client. GW client still use letter as default and that is quite anoying for users.
Regarding comment #11: See comment #3 ( it "makes only sense per application"). Feel free to file a new bug report regarding the GW client and point to this bug but assign it to the GW client maintainer.
All dependant bugs and duplicates are marked as fixed. Therefore set this one to "fixed" too.