GnomePrint and the future
GnomePrint is poorly documented, has incomplete Python bindings, isn’t considered part of the core API and has different rendering model than the rest of GTK.
Thankfully, it’s slated for removal in a few months. It’s going to be replaced by Cairo, the hot new graphics API - which already has Python bindings. I’ll be able to throw a Pango paragraph of unicode text at cairo.show_text( ) and have wonderful things happen.
Ideally, I’d future-proof now by using Cairo to render a temporary PDF or PostScript file, then use printcontext.set_file(filename) to submit the print (or print preview) job.
Unfortunately, I can’t do that! The GnomePrint python bindings do not include the set_file API, and Cairo has not actually rolled a release yet. And no timeline/release information can be found, so short of browsing CVS I have no idea if or when I will be able to do that.
I will be so happy when I can write a tutorial on printing in gnome from python. But that’s months away.