A pixel is a pixel is a pixel....NOT!

[Darwin]

During the alpha build of my latest design project (when every freeping piece has to have major rework to be buildable, it crosses over from redrawing to designing), I have encountered the dreaded printer resizing gremlin. My Epson 820 reduces width by about 2.5% and reduces length by about 6.6%. The way I found out was equal-sized parts were no longer equal when some were oriented on the page vertically and others horizontally. After getting parts resorted on the pages to help equalize the size reductions going on, the build is progressing with no major difficulties, but the length of the boat is going to be reduced by nearly a full inch from what it was designed to be. My question to the other designers is....do all printer brands reduce dimensions in near the same proportion as my Epson? I am thinking of "normalizing" the parts pages (intentionally distorting the dimensions so that, after the printer does its thing on them, printed parts sizes will be at least close (within a couple of pixel widths) to what I intended them to be. However, what helps correct the problem for my printer may exaggerate the problem for someone else's printer. Would that be better than just including a "scale" on the side of the pages and letting the individual modeller figure out what they need to do for size correction?

[Maurice]

Dar

My Epsom wouldn't dare - it's very old fashioned and was much too well brought up.

Seriously this is a case where the designer must leave it to the printer/builder to sort out and adjust for their own equipment.
Scales to both directions (or a simple bounding box of stated size) are a must in any case I reckon.

Have you checked whether your printer does this for all file extensions ? Just a thought, perhaps a pdf conversion before printing.

Maurice

Live long and paper

[Darwin]

Good point. Fortunately, I have a couple of programs that put out a pretty mean pdf file....once the final piece gets drawn, I will give it a try.

[wunwinglow]

Oooo, nasty. Just checked mine and it is pretty well spot on in both directions. Definitely something going on there with 6.6% off the mark! Is there anything 'fit to page' going on anywhere in your printer settings? I find if I let Word, in fact any Microsoft program other than Windows, have anything to do with printing it regularly goes wrong. And trying to control things is like writing while wearing boxing gloves! Have a look at your so-called default printer settings in other programs to see that they are the same. I found Word prefered letter sized paper, no matter what I set elsewhere, and it doesn't offer you the print options when you hit the Print button, it just goes ahead with whatever it has set. Margin settings in Word can also mess up the size of the final output. Fine if Word is the only program you use, an absolute pain in the **** if you use others. I don't know if Outlook, etc, which you might have running at the same time as your other work, might interfere with print settings too. Have you tried closing EVERYTHING except your graphics program and printing then?

Just a thought,

Tim

[gchucky]

and it doesn't offer you the print options when you hit the Print button

You need to customize your word toolbar if you want the print options. If you want, I can list the steps. Microsoft assumes most people want a quick print to the default printer.

Chucky

[wunwinglow]

Chucky, I'd certainly appreciate that! Word really does hack me off sometimes! I suppose I should set aside some time to get to know it better, but it just seems grossly overcomplicated for the vast bulk of what I need to do with words. I usually use wordpad. Which doesn't mess with my printer!

Thanks in advance,

Tim

PS I was always told, never assume. It makes an ass out of U and me....

[Darwin]

Maurice, thanks for the suggestion. The PDF file printed perfectly so it must be a problem with printing from my drawing program.

[gchucky]

Okay, this should work for most office. The steps are for Office XP.

1) Open Word (duh).
2) Right click the toolbar and select Customize.
3) Select the Customize tab (middle one).
4) "File" should already be highlighted. To the right under Commands, scroll down until you see "print ...", not "print" (you already have it on your toolbar)
5) Drag and drop it to the toolbar. A new button should appear. If you dropped it on the wrong spot (doh!), just click the button and drag it to the right location. To remove the old one (or any other button/s for that matter), just click and drag it back to the Commands area.
6) Once you are finished, just close the Customize window. You're done.

Chucky

[Maurice]

Dar

That's good. Could it be that the canvas size is being shrunk to fit the printer margins? Putting the image on a slightly smaller canvas might be worth a try.

Maurice