Comment 37 for bug 34112

The problems described here are because gnome-print libraries are not maintained and buggy. Thanks to Project Ridley these libraries are abandoned and a new printing dialog and libraries will be part of GTK+ (available in GTK+ 2.10). These new libraries will bring a better printing experience and are the right way forward. More info on http://live.gnome.org/ProjectRidley.

Until then we are stuck with gnome-print in dapper (GTK+ 2.8). I have created a patch for libgnomeprint that improves the current printing experience from gnome applications by:
  * Reading options set in PPD, /etc/cups/lpoptions and ~/.cups/lpoptions by making use of gnome_cups_printer_get_options from libgnomecups. This makes sure that options set by gnome-cups-manager will be applied, even options that can't be changed in the gnome print dialog like Printing Quality.
  * allowing more options to be usable in the gnome print dialog: changing of Paper Size, Page Orientation (e.g. Landscape), Duplex and Tumble, 2 pages to 1 and 4 pages to 1. These options only apply to the current print job and are not saved when closing the gnome application.
This was part was inspired by gnome-bug 166564.
Hard to believe that e.g. landscape printing didn't work in gnome apps, this fix solves that.

You find the patch in attachment. This patch solves bug #34112 and its duplicates according to me in the best way possible for the current gnome-print implementation. I advice everyone to test it and to report possible problems with it.