Printing out of desktop applications is done/managed by very many different dialogs, mostly depending on which GUI toolkit is used for an application. Some applications like OpenOffice.org have even their own dialogs. This is confusing the users a lot, having them to do the printing operation in many different ways. In addition, many dialogs are missing important features.

Finally we got the project of implementing the Common Print Dialog funded and so it will be turned reality in Ubuntu Precise.

See also:

https://launchpad.net/common-print-dialog-gtk
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CommonPrintingDialog
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/commonprintingdialog