System :: How to select a printer in apps

I'm working on tidying up the hplip extension and just noticed that when there is more than one printer available it doesn't seem to show up in applications like ted, firefox, openoffice, etc.

I would have expected the print dialogue drop-down box to show all printers available as per the cups browser interface but they don't. Firefox and openoffice print to the default printer and ted seems confused and doesn't print at all.

If I try "hp-print testpage" from a terminal window, the available printers are listed and I'm asked to select one.

Is there some trick to making multiple printers available in applications?

I found the solution for ted - apparently it looks for printers in four ways:

1. lpc status
2. /usr/sbin/lpc status
3. enq -As
4. lpstat -a

Adding the symlink /usr/sbin/lpc -> /opt/hplip/sbin/lpc and/or /usr/bin/lpstat -> /opt/hplip/bin/lpstat caused all of the available printers to be shown in ted.

I'm still stuck with firefox and openoffice (which might require spadmin which is not in the extension) - any ideas?

The trick for firefox appears to be as follows:

1. Enter "about:config" in the url box
2. Enter "print" in the filter box to narrow down the list of preferences
3. Double-click on "print.printer_list"
4. Enter the names of your cups printers, separated by spaces, eg:

"OfficeJetK80 OfficeJetK80Fax [email protected]"
5. Restart firefox

You should now see all of your printers in the print dialogue drop-down box.

You can also change the default paper size by entering "A4" in "print.postscript.paper_size"

original here.