https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94343

--- Comment #7 from Seascape <[email protected]> ---
Speaking as someone who usually (successfully) goes the self-help route to
figure out how to make a program operate as desired, I'm perplexed as to why
LibreOffice was changed to ignore settings specified in the print Properties
box by default. 

This default, which I only learned about in the process of filing a bug report,
can't be overridden unless two inconspicuous options ("Use only paper tray from
printer preferences", "Use only paper size from printer preferences"), -- which
are buried under another tab, no less -- happen to be checked. (Here, I am
referring to the Windows version. In Ubuntu, there's only the latter box.)

This is not intuitive UI, and I simply do not understand it at all. How are
users supposed to figure out that those boxes need to be checked in order for
LibreOffice not to ignore user-selected settings? 

I am not a LibreOffice developer. I do not know what the developers know
because I'm not writing the code or designing the UI. Now that I know what to
do, I can do it. I'll remember to open up that Options tab and check those
boxes when I have a nontypical print job. But before this week, I was in the
dark. I could not figure out how to get my documents to print as desired, and I
had to resort to using OpenOffice instead. 

I encourage every LO developer to be mindful of the Curse of Knowledge: you
don't know what it's like for you not to know what you know. Defeating the
Curse of Knowledge isn't easy. It takes imagination. Put yourself in the user's
shoes. 

If I go to print a document in *any* application, whether a web browser, email
client, or office suite, and I open the Properties in order to pass some
instructions along to the printer... for example, print from Tray 1, not Tray
2, convert to grayscale, and expect cardstock, not regular paper -- I expect
those settings to be honored by the application. I don't expect them to be
discarded when I click OK. Yet that is what is happening in LibreOffice.

Or consider another scenario: If I want to turn on duplexing, but I forget to
check that box, twice as much paper will get used because the printer will not
have been instructed to print on both sides. 

The current UI is a recipe for user frustration. Please change it. The default
should be that LO automatically honors any settings the user specifies in print
Properties. That is the behavior users expect.

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