[lubuntu-users] GIMP 2.8.x resizing for printer

[Basil Fernie]

Hi Ian,

I think you have it right. And, in fact, your work-around I vaguely 
recall using probably nearly a year ago, so maybe from MX17 and not 17.1 
. And, in fact, I tried it in the past week ot two unsuccessfully, but 
didn't mention it amongst all the workarounds I did try with like 
outcomes. I thought it would be less guff to throw at the Lubuntu 
community whom I would merely trouble to hear if anyone had encountered 
a similar problem with GIMP 2.8.x.

Now I have a cascade of dichotomies to investigate, along with all the 
relevant interactions:

     GIMP 2.8.22  vs GIMP 2.8.??   ?

     LO 6.0.3  vs  LO 5.x.y    ?

     MX17  vs  MX17.1     ?

(At least it's the same printer!)

So I'll be pragmatic rather than academic and download MX18beta1 even 
though I'd rather get past the beta version and see it that cures my 
problem before deciding to go bughunting.

Fact is, I don't use GIMP often enough to be confident with it. Usually 
I'm trying to isolate an image from a PDF file, often generated as an 
Adobe Acrobat pic, and resize it for presentation. Last time I succeeded 
was with the new letterhead a graphic designer had designed for the 
charity my wife and I run, to isolate the logo itself and resize it. 
Yes, I did succeed - then. Now, this lad I'm mentoring drew up visuals 
for the plays he had strategized for the kids soccer teams he and other 
young men are coaching locally on behalf of the Sports Academy (??) of 
Portugal. He did it all on GIMP, then asked me to print it for handouts 
for the coaches' seminar. Much egg on face because of tiny print sizes, 
also time budget. Should have taken perhaps 5 minutes, he had about 30 
to spare. Which wasn't enough, with the original image refusing even LO 
Draw's efforts to resize it.

I really don't do much graphics, and I probably do do it in LO 
(importing, positioning, resizing externally obtained images) . I keep 
GIMP around for the rare occasion where greater abilities are needed and 
I can set aside an hour or so to experiment with the techniques needed 
for GIMP /de jour/. But I find it frustrating that it is so difficult to 
do the simplest of creative and editing functions in GIMP that I am 
seriously discouraged from fiddling around with it in spare moments to 
get used to doing things its way, at least at a very elementary level. 
Like: <rant>

     Define a point, A

     Use it as the centre of a circle, C1

     Define another point, B

     Connect A and B with a straight line AB

     Connect A and B with a freehand wiggly line A~B

     Drag the circumference of C1 to pass through B, making another 
circle C2

     Shade the ring-like space between C1 and C2 (the torus? Is it a 
/torus/? Wow! If not, then too bad, you understand what I mean) and fill 
it with a selected colour

     Select some portion of this exciting image by framing it with some 
rectangle whose position and size I can easily define with just the mouse.

     Print selected portion without resizing it

     Resize and reposition by dragging on the printable space. Print it 
to the corresponding size.

- all within shall we say 8 minutes, without referencing any text manual 
pages, relying only on the rather intuitive menu-headings and entries 
(where GIMP currently fails massively in my experience)...

If GIMP could do that - reliably, from version to version - year in and 
year out, while getting more and more AutoCAD threatening if that's what 
they want to do - I would play with it and graduate close on 10 children 
a year from our safe home as happy, intuitive 
competent-at-an-elementary-level  Linux users, LO users, VLC users, and 
GIMP (*gimp* maybe?) users. Living proof to the school system that they 
should permit the use of open systems in the classroom and staff offices 
as they are by implication obliged to do.

What would it take to write an elementary UI for GIMP, with a 
much-simplified/reduced menu system and reduced option-set, with 
possibly an intermediate alternative, allowing eventual progress to raw 
GIMP which had been hiding behind the friendly screens all along? Select 
complexity level from initial menu screen? Remember, you don't want to 
mess with the innards, just the UI? Hopefully?

Ive been writing software for 50 years and hate getting egg on my face 
because someone else's UI doesn't make sense to simple beings.

</rant>

Cheers

Basil









On 05/12/18 13:39, Ian Bruntlett wrote:
> Hi Basil,
>
> I hope I've understood your problem correctly...
>
> When faced with problems like this, I import the image into 
> LibreOffice Draw, set the page to Portrait / Landscape, resize the 
> image appropriately, and print it from there.
>
> To set the page to Portrait or Landscape, load LO Draw and go Format 
> -> Page Properties and then choose the appropriate Portrait / 
> Landscape radio button.
>
> The above approach is used in a charity, Contact, that I volunteer in 
> and works for me :)
>
> HTH,
>
>
> Ian
>
> -- 
> -- ACCU - Professionalism in programming - http://www.accu.org
> -- My writing - https://sites.google.com/site/ianbruntlett/
> -- Free Software page - 
> https://sites.google.com/site/ianbruntlett/home/free-software
>

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