Problem

OpenOffice stores the printer, used for the formatting and printing of the current document, in the document file itself.

The restoring of this document printer after loading a document can be a problem, if OpenOffice will be used in a global network environment (e.g. a WAN or especially in Sun's flexible Office concept using SunRay's) or on a system (e.g. a notebook) where different environments (printer queue's) are present at the same time. (e.g. a notebook used at home and in the company). In such an environment documents will often be printed on the false printer when the print direct function (offered in the standard object bar) will be used.

Maybe this problem occurs as well if OpenOffice will be used in the new Sun Webtop environment. (not evaluated at this point)

Solution

We have analysed different possibilities to solve this problem. Due to our main concern, not to confuse the user with a new UI, we decided to look for an easy way to solve the problem without big UI changes and without loosing features. Always keep in mind that printing is a very key critical feature and will be used by nearly every user!

The direct printing button in the objectbar of OpenOffice does not call the print dialog in the current version. For our solution we want to show the print dialog in some cases which will cause the problem described above.

We want to call the print dialog on condition that the document printer differs from the system standard printer and the printer is available on the system too. Just not to loose the information which printer was set on the document (important for document templates used in companies), we should preselect this printer in the print dialog. Additionally we should implement a new option in the tools-options section to suppress this print dialog at any time and to force the printout on the system or document printer.

If a document printer is not available on the current system, the printout will be done on the system default printer without any print dialog.

Furthermore a bubble help on the direct printout button should show the printer which will be used for the printout. Also a new section to the help should be added. The help should contain a tip how to set a system default printer “hard” to the document without the standard printer flag. (maybe important for template design) (-> In this case the current standard printer should be changed to a temporary one)

Dialog

Local System Configuration	Action
Document printer is equal to default system printer	Printout on default system printer without dialog
Printer available but not set as system default	Show print dialog with document printer preselected
Document printer is not available	Printout on default system printer without dialog

Option in the tools-option section for print direct

We should add the following option on tools-options-common-printing:

Print direct (group box)

[ ] Suppress print dialog if document printer does not match system default printer

(X) always print on system default printer (defaulted)

( ) always print on document printer (if available)

The two options are disabled as long as the main option (suppressing the dialog) is not checked (and this is the default). The option “always use system default print” will be defaulted too.