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>Preface</H1
><P
> Gutenprint is the print facility of the GNU Image Manipulation
Program (GIMP). It is in addition a suite of drivers that may be
used with common UNIX spooling systems using Ghostscript or CUPS.
These drivers provide printing quality for Linux, MacOS X and UNIX
on a par with proprietary vendor-supplied drivers in many cases,
and can be used for many of the most demanding printing tasks,
especially for high quality printing on modern inkjets, including
“photographic quality” models which offer very high
resolutions and several inks. The core of Gutenprint is a shared
library (libgutenprint) which may be used by any program that
wishes to produce high-quality printed output.
</P
><P
> This manual documents the use of the
<SPAN
CLASS="application"
>Gutenprint</SPAN
> package, focusing mainly on
the libgutenprint library that is the core of
<SPAN
CLASS="application"
>Gutenprint</SPAN
>. Parts of the manual which
describe the use of libgutenprint are aimed primarily at
programmers, and do assume that the reader is familiar with C
programming, and using standard programming tools on GNU or UNIX
systems.
</P
><P
> For the end-user, there is a separate manual documenting
programs that come with Gutenprint, including the
<SPAN
CLASS="application"
>GIMP</SPAN
> <B
CLASS="command"
>print</B
> plugin,
and the <SPAN
CLASS="application"
>CUPS</SPAN
> and
<SPAN
CLASS="application"
>Ghostscript</SPAN
> drivers.
</P
><P
> To learn how to use libgutenprint in your own programs is to look
at the source of the <B
CLASS="command"
>testpattern</B
>, located in
<TT
CLASS="filename"
>src/testpattern</TT
>, as well as
the source of the other programs that use libgutenprint, and
libgutenprint itself. Most importantly, please consult the API
reference and libgutenprint headers.
</P
><P
> The manual is split into several parts for the programmer. It
starts with a simple usage example of how to link a program with
libgutenprint, then how to integrate this into package build
scripts, using <B
CLASS="command"
>make</B
>,
<B
CLASS="command"
>autoconf</B
> and <B
CLASS="command"
>automake</B
>. The
appendices cover the detail of the inner workings of some parts of
libgutenprint.
</P
><P
> The following sections detail the dither and weave algorithms used
in libgutenprint, the ESC/P2 printer control language used in Epson
printers and how to add support for a new printer to libgutenprint.
</P
><P
> <P
CLASS="literallayout"
>We hope you enjoy using Gutenprint!<br>
—The Gutenprint project<br>
</P
>
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