<preface>
  <title>Preface</title>
  <indexterm><primary>reading</primary></indexterm>
  <indexterm><primary>manual, how to read</primary></indexterm>
  <para>
    Gimp-Print 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
    &ldquo;photographic quality&rdquo; models which offer very high
    resolutions and several inks.  The core of Gimp-Print is a shared
    library (libgimpprint) which may be used by any program that
    wishes to produce high-quality printed output.
  </para>
  <para>
    This manual documents the use of the
    <application>Gimp-Print</application> package, focusing mainly on
    the libgimpprint library that is the core of
    <application>Gimp-Print</application>.  Parts of the manual which
    describe the use of libgimpprint 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.
    </para>
  <para>
    For the end-user, there is a separate manual documenting
    programs that come with Gimp-Print, including the
    <application>GIMP</application> <command>print</command> plugin,
    and the <application>CUPS</application> and
    <application>Ghostscript</application> drivers.
  </para>
  <para>
    To learn how to use libgimpprint in your own programs is to look
    at the source of the <command>testpattern</command>, located in
    <filename class="directory">src/testpattern</filename>, as well as
    the source of the other programs that use libgimpprint, and
    libgimpprint itself.  Most importantly, please consult the API
    reference and libgimpprint headers.
  </para>
  <para>
    The manual is split into several parts for the programmer.  It
    starts with a simple usage example of how to link a program with
    libgimpprint, then how to integrate this into package build
    scripts, using <command>make</command>,
    <command>autoconf</command> and <command>automake</command>.  The
    appendices cover the detail of the inner workings of some parts of
    libgimpprint.
  </para>
  <para>
    The following sections detail the dither and weave algorithms used
    in libgimpprint, the ESC/P2 printer control language used in Epson
    printers and how to add support for a new printer to libgimpprint.
  </para>
  <para>
    <literallayout>We hope you enjoy using Gimp-Print!
&mdash;The Gimp-Print project
    </literallayout>
  </para>
</preface>
