Hello,

Sorry for my limited English. What do you mean by "gobbledegook" ? Do you have random signs? or is the page layout messed up?

Is the Print preview of Firefox good looking?

May be you can try to print a text, from another application, like libre office and see if there is the same problem.

A bit of possibly useful background. The Linux print system CUPS is the same one Apple uses. Originally developed for open source *nix and later adopted by Apple (like webkit, except Apple hired the original developers and took over the project instead of forking).

If you are lucky it "just works", which, to be fair, there days it does most of the time. It is notoriously hard to configure when it does not though. The bad news is that this is one of the two most problematic areas with configuring Linux (graphics cards are the other) - the good news is that once done you are unlikely to come across anything worse later on.

What is the printer? A quick Google will tell you of any known issues (try "[printername] cups" or "[printername]" linux).

I assume Kubuntu has a print config utility, and that is what you used? Try deleting and reinstalling. If its an HP printer check the hplip package is installed.

There is also an alternative web based admin interface: [localhost:631...] That is very useful if you have attached your printer to another machine (mine is plugged into a Raspberry PI so we have a print server), but also worth trying if things do not work as expected.

@JorgeV

What do you mean by "gobbledegook" ? Do you have random signs? or is the page layout messed up?

Gobbledegook, just random gibberish, signs, nonsense, and prints many pages of this nonsense.

Is the Print preview of Firefox good looking?

Print preview looks just fine.

May be you can try to print a text, from another application, like libre office and see if there is the same problem.

Libre office prints just fine.

@graeme_p

What is the printer?

It's a Brother HL-L8360CDW

I assume Kubuntu has a print config utility, and that is what you used?

I simply used the print dropdown in FF and discovered the printer already there. I thought, great, no need to chase for drivers.
As I mentioned above, libreoffice works fine, so it suggests FF rather than the printer driver.
The printer is a network machine so that all users get access, and it works fine on Android, Windows, and Mac.

A network printer should not need a driver installed. It should be auto discovered, and "just work".

You could try deleting the printer using the config utility or the webadmin on localhost. It should be detected again and added again.

A network printer should not need a driver installed. It should be auto discovered, and "just work".

You could try deleting the printer using the config utility or the webadmin on localhost. It should be detected again and added again.

Exactly, it was, and because it works fine on other applications, i wonder why doing that when it's only FF will help the cause.
I'm going to try another browser later and see if that works.

Sorry I misunderstood, its only from Firefox that it prints gobbledegook? You have the problem with all web pages, and local HTML files, even simple ones?

Have you tried printing to file from Firefox and then opening and printing the PDF it creates?

I wonder if FF is doing something weird with network printers - I mean by passing the standard mechanism and sending directly or something like that.

I wondered about the last possibility, and it looks like it might be similar to this: [support.mozilla.org...]

Although that might mean its some Gtk/Gnome bug. Try installing Gedit and printing from that.

Did you manage to solve this?

I haven't, yet. In part i'm not familiar with all the terminology, Gtk/Gnome and Gedit, so each new issue is a another piece of learning.
As it's a development process, it has to run in parallel with day-to-day projects, so it's doesn't get full attention if it were my only machine and I had absolutely to get it running.

OK, that was my fault for going too fast - I imagine I would get lost quite quickly is someone was explaining Windows stuff with the same assumptions. Gtk is just a (cross platform) library used for GUI applications, part of the Gnome project. Gedit is a text editor that uses it. Just install Gedit (its in the software installer) and whether it has the same problem when you print from it.

Keep us posted, I am interested in how it goes - apart from my daughter, who grew up with Linux, most people I have helped with Linux are naive users, and I am interested in how, compared to them your greater IT problem solving skills balance against more demanding usage - I know I encounter far more problems than my wife does with Linux, for example.