Hi All,

Software: PageStream 5.0.5.8 running under Snow leopard 10.6.8

Hardware: HP 2605dn color laserjet printer and Epson Stylus Photo R3000 Printer

Been testing how well PageStream can print to either printer using either its own print system or the Mac OS X print system which one can activate by selecting the option <Use System Printing> located on the 'General' item within PageStream's preferences pane.

For my work, it is crucial to be able to use the Mac print system because with PageStream's print system one cannot reach many settings that are crucial to the proper operation of the selected printer. For example, when using the Epson, one must be able to access the options in the "Print Settings" pane so that certain specifics can be set. Good example, is "Media Type", i.e., the type of paper that one plans to print a document onto. Such settings, and other I will not mention, are also necessary when I use the HP laserjet and want good quality results.

So in the following, I'm using the Mac's <Use System Printing> option unless specified to the contrary.

Created a four page 'template' which in fact contains two templates, one for portrait viewing and one for landscape viewing. Each template requires a two-page printout that must be printed on a single sheet. With the HP laserjet, I can use duplex printing, but with the Epson there is no duplexing. Also, depending on the paper being used, sometimes it is necessary to avoid using the duplex option even when working with the laserjet. So after printing the first side, I must know which edge is "the leading edge" when manually placing a sheet on the input tray. By "leading edge" I mean the short edge of a 8.5"x11" page which will be the first edge to enter the body of the printer. Consequently, I was not using the duplex option on the laserjet and noticed that although I specified but one copy of a page, two copies were coming out of the HP 2605. At first, I thought this did not happen when I used duplexing, then, yesterday, I found the HP laserjet spitting out two copies instead of the specified one while duplexing. Because of this malfunction I began examining the print queue for the laserjet. Each printer has its own print queue. I would wait until the desired page hit the output bin and would then tell the print queue to either 'Hold' or 'Delete' the current job. But I did not quite understand what was happening.

Last night I started experimenting with the Epson R3000. Here duplexing is not possible. Damned if the same thing was happening, but this time, with my eye sharp on the print queue, I was able to see what transpired. Instead of sending a single job to the print queue, ***PageStream is sending two jobs***.

For example, suppose the name of the PageStream file is Photo.pgs and I ask PageStream to print to the Epson. Upon hitting the 'Print' button, two NEW jobs appear in Epson's print queue:

(1) a job titled 'untitled' which is in 'Printing' mode
(2) a job titled 'Photo' which is next in the queue.

The (1) and (2) above do not appear as part of the print queue. I use them for reference. Each job represents a single page of printout, and if I allow both to 'Completed' then the sheets produced are identical. After I caught on, and in order to prevent the "one for the price of two", one simply highlights job (2) -- since job (1) prints first -- and then specifies 'Hold' or 'Delete'. In this manner, I can successfully print a single page on the Epson, but the process is ridiculous. RIDICULOUS!!

Not having noticed the above while working with the HP laserjet, I repeated the same process with the laserjet. Same result! PageStream sends two print jobs instead of one. In fact, you can check this with the printer in question offline. But the print jobs are there and as soon as you light up the printer, they will probably be printed -- depends on how you've specified when the printer should go into action.

This occurs when the only active application programs are PageStream and the print queue. Of course, many system applications are also running, but, nonetheless, I blame PageStream for the noted performance. This is a nasty bug and need be fixed!!!

I await the responses from other Mac users who claim nothing like this happens on their turf!

Printing Via PDF
================
First turn off the option <Use System Printing> in PageStream's preferences. Next use PageStream's
File -> Save as PDF...
menu item. When the "Save As PDF' pane appears, I uncheck "Display Document Online" since I have no idea what that does. As to 'Compression', 'Security', and 'Fonts' I just accept the defaults. Click 'Save' and then assign a directory and name for the file. Say the name is 'Photo.pdf'.

Next ... display the file Photo.pdf with Preview.app and then tell Preview.app to print it! That's the alternate route that some of you are using! Right?

Well, for the current project, it ain't worth a damn since:

My PageStream file Photo.pgs has margins at top, bottom,left, and right of exactly 2 picas = 1/3 inches. And that is what I require. Not 3p nor 4p2 nor 3p6, exactly 2p. Using the Mac print system, activate <Use System Printing>, I can obtain a printout with exactly those margins ..... well ..... within 2 points which is good enough.

When I tell Preview.app to print Photo.pdf, up comes the 'Print' pane in Preview style. Looking at the thumbnail I can see that something is wrong. The margins are obviously too large. Who changed them? There is an option "Auto Rotate"! Auto rotate what? There is a 'Scale' button but it is ghosted. A "Scale to Fit" and a "Print Entire Image" button are active! What do they do? Select the 'Scale' option and replace 90% by 100%. The margins are still clearly wrong. Fiddle for five minutes trying to get the margins right. Give up and print. What are the margins on the printed sheet: They are 42 pt, 42 pt, 41 pt, 46 pt -- sorry, not good enough! -- should be 24 points = 2p.

How does one change things in Preview.app so that the original document is obtained? For some projects, this kind of error would be tolerable, but NOT in this case. At least Preview.app sends but one print job.

Any advice re Preview.app would be appreciated.

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

Thank you, Don, for correcting my impression that "Use System Printing" was a pointless choice of interface.

I can confirm some but not all of what Don reported. Like Don, I get an extra print job, but my experience with margins is different.

My printer setup: default printer is a monochrome laser with no auto duplex (Brother HL-1440) connected to a Mac across the room, accessed via a wireless home network. An inkjet all-in-one with auto duplex capability (HP Officejet Pro L7590) is directly connected to my Mac.

Test document: trying to match Don's, 2 pages US letter size, portrait orientation, 1/3 inch margins, each page has a PgS-generated border right out to the margins and has page numbers (to show which end is up). So (as close as I can measure) the total border image size should be 7.83 x 10.33 inches, and the margins should be 0.33 inches all around.

The tests attempt to get duplex printing with correct scaling and margins by printing to the HP inkjet.

Printing from PageStream with "Use System Printing":

When I hit the Preview button I get a printout from the default printer (the Brother laser across the room). So that aspect of system printing does not work. Some options ordinarily available in system printing, such as Preview pane, page size and orientation, scale, etc. are not there.

The Custom Feature pane shows only an "Example Checkbox" checkbox; I don't know what it means so I left it unchecked. For the HP inkjet printer the Layout pane has an option for two-sided printing, where I selected long-edge binding. The Paper Handling pane has an option to "Scale to fit paper size," which I left unchecked.

Printing to the HP inkjet: one sheet printed on both sides, as expected. Image width 7.82" on both pages, close enough. Margins on page 1 are 0.37" on the left, 0.31" on the right; margins on page 2 are equal, that is, image was centered. But top and bottom were cropped on page 1, and the bottom was cropped on page 2, to about 0.4 to 0.5". Not good.

I also got an extra printout, on the default printer (the Brother laser), of course no duplex, two separate pages on one side only. Image was 7.82" x 10.38" (width OK, height oversize), margins OK top and sides and therefore undersize on the bottom.

Saving to PDF and printing from Preview:

The print dialog opens with the default printer chosen, US Letter paper, showing top and bottom cropped. When I change the printer to the HP inkjet the paper size changes to Borderless 8.5 x ll and the preview shows no cropping. In the Preview pane, Scale 100% is selected. In the Layout pane I select two-sided printing, long edge binding.

The output is on two separate sheets, not duplexed, even though I specified two-sided printing. Same result whether or not I check Collated. The image is oversize, 7.99" by 10.67", and the margins are correspondingly undersize.

Saving to PDF and printing from Adobe Reader:

Adobe Reader, like PgS, does not use the system interface, but the options are different. I got duplex printing, width and side margins OK, but cropped at the bottom on page 1 and at both top and bottom on page 2.

Contrast with Don's result: Don got two jobs sent to the specified printer, I got one job to the specified printer and one to the default printer. Don could not get correct margins when printing the PDF from Preview but I assume he got correct margins when printing from PgS with "Use System Printing." I could not get correct margins at all (though the scaling and margins I get printing from Preview on the Brother laser are close enough for my own purposes).

When Don says the margins were too large, he didn't specify whether the image was scaled or cropped. That might be interesting but probably not of any practical importance, since unusable is unusable.

I suspect (because Don and I got such different results) that at least some of the inaccuracies in scaling and margins are attributable to the printer hardware or firmware rather than the software on the computer.

Answering (some of) Don's questions:

"Auto Rotate" will change the paper from Portrait to Landscape or vice versa to fit the image or page being printed.

"Scale to Fit" will enlarge or shrink the image to fit the printable area of the paper. If the image is not the same shape as the space it's supposed to fit, "Print Entire Image" will leave some extra margins, while "Fill Entire Paper" will crop the image. "Scale to fit" is usually wrong when printing a PDF because it shrinks a full page image to fit the printable area.

--
Martin B. Brilliant - mbrilliant@alum.mit.edu
Mac OS X version 10.6.8
PageStream (non-pro) 5.0.5.8

On Dec 21, 2011, at 11:36 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Software: PageStream 5.0.5.8 running under Snow leopard 10.6.8
>
> Hardware: HP 2605dn color laserjet printer and Epson Stylus Photo R3000 Printer
>
> Been testing how well PageStream can print to either printer using either its own print system or the Mac OS X print system which one can activate by selecting the option <Use System Printing> located on the 'General' item within PageStream's preferences pane.
>
> For my work, it is crucial to be able to use the Mac print system because with PageStream's print system one cannot reach many settings that are crucial to the proper operation of the selected printer. For example, when using the Epson, one must be able to access the options in the "Print Settings" pane so that certain specifics can be set. Good example, is "Media Type", i.e., the type of paper that one plans to print a document onto. Such settings, and other I will not mention, are also necessary when I use the HP laserjet and want good quality results.
>
> So in the following, I'm using the Mac's <Use System Printing> option unless specified to the contrary.
>
> Created a four page 'template' which in fact contains two templates, one for portrait viewing and one for landscape viewing. Each template requires a two-page printout that must be printed on a single sheet. With the HP laserjet, I can use duplex printing, but with the Epson there is no duplexing. Also, depending on the paper being used, sometimes it is necessary to avoid using the duplex option even when working with the laserjet. So after printing the first side, I must know which edge is "the leading edge" when manually placing a sheet on the input tray. By "leading edge" I mean the short edge of a 8.5"x11" page which will be the first edge to enter the body of the printer. Consequently, I was not using the duplex option on the laserjet and noticed that although I specified but one copy of a page, two copies were coming out of the HP 2605. At first, I thought this did not happen when I used duplexing, then, yesterday, I found the HP laserjet spitting out two copies instea!
> d of the specified one while duplexing. Because of this malfunction I began examining the print queue for the laserjet. Each printer has its own print queue. I would wait until the desired page hit the output bin and would then tell the print queue to either 'Hold' or 'Delete' the current job. But I did not quite understand what was happening.
>
> Last night I started experimenting with the Epson R3000. Here duplexing is not possible. Damned if the same thing was happening, but this time, with my eye sharp on the print queue, I was able to see what transpired. Instead of sending a single job to the print queue, ***PageStream is sending two jobs***.
>
> For example, suppose the name of the PageStream file is Photo.pgs and I ask PageStream to print to the Epson. Upon hitting the 'Print' button, two NEW jobs appear in Epson's print queue:
>
> (1) a job titled 'untitled' which is in 'Printing' mode
> (2) a job titled 'Photo' which is next in the queue.
>
> The (1) and (2) above do not appear as part of the print queue. I use them for reference. Each job represents a single page of printout, and if I allow both to 'Completed' then the sheets produced are identical. After I caught on, and in order to prevent the "one for the price of two", one simply highlights job (2) -- since job (1) prints first -- and then specifies 'Hold' or 'Delete'. In this manner, I can successfully print a single page on the Epson, but the process is ridiculous. RIDICULOUS!!
>
> Not having noticed the above while working with the HP laserjet, I repeated the same process with the laserjet. Same result! PageStream sends two print jobs instead of one. In fact, you can check this with the printer in question offline. But the print jobs are there and as soon as you light up the printer, they will probably be printed -- depends on how you've specified when the printer should go into action.
>
> This occurs when the only active application programs are PageStream and the print queue. Of course, many system applications are also running, but, nonetheless, I blame PageStream for the noted performance. This is a nasty bug and need be fixed!!!
>
> I await the responses from other Mac users who claim nothing like this happens on their turf!
>
>
> Printing Via PDF
> ================
> First turn off the option <Use System Printing> in PageStream's preferences. Next use PageStream's
> File -> Save as PDF...
> menu item. When the "Save As PDF' pane appears, I uncheck "Display Document Online" since I have no idea what that does. As to 'Compression', 'Security', and 'Fonts' I just accept the defaults. Click 'Save' and then assign a directory and name for the file. Say the name is 'Photo.pdf'.
>
> Next ... display the file Photo.pdf with Preview.app and then tell Preview.app to print it! That's the alternate route that some of you are using! Right?
>
> Well, for the current project, it ain't worth a damn since:
>
> My PageStream file Photo.pgs has margins at top, bottom,left, and right of exactly 2 picas = 1/3 inches. And that is what I require. Not 3p nor 4p2 nor 3p6, exactly 2p. Using the Mac print system, activate <Use System Printing>, I can obtain a printout with exactly those margins ..... well ..... within 2 points which is good enough.
>
> When I tell Preview.app to print Photo.pdf, up comes the 'Print' pane in Preview style. Looking at the thumbnail I can see that something is wrong. The margins are obviously too large. Who changed them? There is an option "Auto Rotate"! Auto rotate what? There is a 'Scale' button but it is ghosted. A "Scale to Fit" and a "Print Entire Image" button are active! What do they do? Select the 'Scale' option and replace 90% by 100%. The margins are still clearly wrong. Fiddle for five minutes trying to get the margins right. Give up and print. What are the margins on the printed sheet: They are 42 pt, 42 pt, 41 pt, 46 pt -- sorry, not good enough! -- should be 24 points = 2p.
>
> How does one change things in Preview.app so that the original document is obtained? For some projects, this kind of error would be tolerable, but NOT in this case. At least Preview.app sends but one print job.
>
> Any advice re Preview.app would be appreciated.
>
>
> Don Green Dragon
> fergdc@Shaw.ca
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Hi All,

Yes! I'm really losing it! Replying to my own message ..... BECAUSE ..... today, printing via PageStream with the <Use System Printing> in effect worked AS IT SHOULD ..... well ..... most of the time. Yesterday, my main bitch was

> <<snip>>
> Last night I started experimenting with the Epson R3000. Here duplexing is not possible. Damned if the same thing was happening, but this time, with my eye sharp on the print queue, I was able to see what transpired. Instead of sending a single job to the print queue, ***PageStream is sending two jobs***.
>
> For example, suppose the name of the PageStream file is Photo.pgs and I ask PageStream to print to the Epson. Upon hitting the 'Print' button, two NEW jobs appear in Epson's print queue:
>
> (1) a job titled 'untitled' which is in 'Printing' mode
> (2) a job titled 'Photo' which is next in the queue.

All trials today have been with the Epson R3000.

Well today, after printing at least 10 pages via 10 different PRINT commands, i.e., 10 successive print jobs, there was ***not even one occasion*** where two prints jobs were sent to the printer --- and you can be sure I was watching the print queue. Not one! What a pleasure after yesterday's disasters! AND, what did I change that made the difference? I don't bloody know. As far as I know, I didn't change the printer settings, other than which pages to print.

However, I did have one eruption. On one printout, the results were crazy! A word like 'Choose' printed like 'Cvvvvv' and so forth. Bizarre! Solution? Suspected that PageStream had become a basket case, so quit PageStream (with Command+Q), then fired up again. All returned to normalcy. This is not the first time that I've had PageStream become an idiot in synchrony with its user. So my advice is: If PageStream starts acting 'funny', then save file, quite immediately, and start up PageStream again. On occasion, about two or three, that did not eliminate the 'strange' behaviour and so a 'Restart...' command was given.

As to the jobs (1) and (2) noted above, only the (1) version appeared today, which is really not satisfactory. If you send two different documents to the printer, and later look to see what is going on, it is desirable to know which file the current job relates to. But, that may be a peculiarity of the Epson interface. By the way, the Hewlett Packard print queue is much more informative. Gives you a complete record of what you have printed since doomsday, including the print jobs that you stopped by 'deleting' them. Once the Epson completes a print job, then the record of the print job is automatically erased. The only print jobs that remain in the queue are those that have been placed "On Hold".

But if PageStream is creating a print job with the title 'untitled' when the source file has a 'real' name, then that should be changed.

However, the complaint about printing via a PDF file and Preview.app remains. I tried again today and could not figure out how to realize what PageStream + <Use System Printing> produces. The complaint was:

> Next ... display the file Photo.pdf with Preview.app and then tell Preview.app to print it! That's the alternate route that some of you are using! Right?
>
> Well, for the current project, it ain't worth a damn since:
>
> My PageStream file Photo.pgs has margins at top, bottom,left, and right of exactly 2 picas = 1/3 inches. And that is what I require. Not 3p nor 4p2 nor 3p6, exactly 2p. Using the Mac print system, activate <Use System Printing>, I can obtain a printout with exactly those margins ..... well ..... within 2 points which is good enough.
>
> When I tell Preview.app to print Photo.pdf, up comes the 'Print' pane in Preview style. Looking at the thumbnail I can see that something is wrong. The margins are obviously too large. Who changed them? There is an option "Auto Rotate"! Auto rotate what? There is a 'Scale' button but it is ghosted. A "Scale to Fit" and a "Print Entire Image" button are active! What do they do? Select the 'Scale' option and replace 90% by 100%. The margins are still clearly wrong. Fiddle for five minutes trying to get the margins right. Give up and print. What are the margins on the printed sheet: They are 42 pt, 42 pt, 41 pt, 46 pt -- sorry, not good enough! -- should be 24 points = 2p.

I rambled on with:

> The (1) and (2) above do not appear as part of the print queue. I use them for reference. Each job represents a single page of printout, and if I allow both to 'Completed' then the sheets produced are identical. After I caught on, and in order to prevent the "one for the price of two", one simply highlights job (2) -- since job (1) prints first -- and then specifies 'Hold' or 'Delete'. In this manner, I can successfully print a single page on the Epson, but the process is ridiculous. RIDICULOUS!!
>
> Not having noticed the above while working with the HP laserjet, I repeated the same process with the laserjet. Same result! PageStream sends two print jobs instead of one. In fact, you can check this with the printer in question offline. But the print jobs are there and as soon as you light up the printer, they will probably be printed -- depends on how you've specified when the printer should go into action.

No trials with the HP laserjet carried out today! Sick and tired of trials!

Am I eating humble pie today? NO! What happened yesterday happened, and I was damn careful to record just what did happen. The reportage was not the product of my meagre imagination.

In fact, today, I've been able to smile ..... well ..... once in a while.

Now I must see what Martin has to say.

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

On Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:53:02 -0500, Don Green Dragon <fergdc@shaw.ca> wrote:

>
> Hi All,
> Yes! I'm really losing it! Replying to my own message ..... BECAUSE ..... today, printing via PageStream with the <Use System Printing> in effect worked AS IT >SHOULD ..... well ..... most of the time. Yesterday, my main bitch was
>
> However, I did have one eruption. On one printout, the results were crazy! A word like 'Choose' printed like 'Cvvvvv' and so forth. Bizarre! Solution? Suspected >that PageStream had become a basket case, so quit PageStream (with Command+Q), then fired up again. All returned to normalcy. This is not the first time >that I've had PageStream become an idiot in synchrony with its user. So my advice is: If PageStream starts acting 'funny', then save file, quite immediately, >and start up PageStream again. On occasion, about two or three, that did not eliminate the 'strange' behaviour and so a 'Restart...' command was given.
I would suspect hardware problem there, possible memory corruption, which might be related to power supply problems. Is the rest of your hardware working ok?
--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client:http://www.opera.com/mail/

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for replying confirming or not confirming what I've been writing about.

On 22Dec2011, at 2:31 PM, Martin B. Brilliant wrote:

> Thank you, Don, for correcting my impression that "Use System Printing" was a pointless choice of interface.

Glad that is the case for you, because here it is vital.

> I can confirm some but not all of what Don reported. Like Don, I get an extra print job, but my experience with margins is different.

And, as I've written in another message, today, while working with the Epson, there have been NO extra print jobs. I was as astonished as I was pleased.

> My printer setup: default printer is a monochrome laser with no auto duplex (Brother HL-1440) connected to a Mac across the room, accessed via a wireless home network. An inkjet all-in-one with auto duplex capability (HP Officejet Pro L7590) is directly connected to my Mac.
>
> Test document: trying to match Don's, 2 pages US letter size, portrait orientation, 1/3 inch margins, each page has a PgS-generated border right out to the margins and has page numbers (to show which end is up). So (as close as I can measure) the total border image size should be 7.83 x 10.33 inches, and the margins should be 0.33 inches all around.

Right.

> The tests attempt to get duplex printing with correct scaling and margins by printing to the HP inkjet.
>
> Printing from PageStream with "Use System Printing":
>
> When I hit the Preview button I get a printout from the default printer (the Brother laser across the room). So that aspect of system printing does not work.

OK so we both have observed that 'Preview' fails, you when your Brother laserjet is active, and me when the HP laserjet is active. I haven't tried that when the Epson is the default printer. FALSE! Just tried it now, with the Epson 'offfline' and the HP not even powered up, then a print job that should go to the Epson appeared on the HP print queue!!! That makes no sense at all, but who is responsible for the misdirection?

> Some options ordinarily available in system printing, such as Preview pane, page size and orientation, scale, etc. are not there.

I don't understand the relevance of the 'Preview' option in the setting in question. What you see in the PageStream view is surely the 'preview'. Is the intent to automatically create a PDF equivalent and then have Preview.app display the PDF??? Not clear to me!

> The Custom Feature pane shows only an "Example Checkbox" checkbox; I don't know what it means so I left it unchecked.

Same here! Don't know what it means, so leave it alone.

> For the HP inkjet printer the Layout pane has an option for two-sided printing, where I selected long-edge binding. The Paper Handling pane has an option to "Scale to fit paper size," which I left unchecked.

Say you had created a doc with PageStream designed for A4 paper which is slightly longer and slightly narrower than US letter. If you were going to print to US letter sized paper, then maybe the "Scale to fit paper size" guy would be useful instead redesigning in PageStream. You should be able to maintain pagination and the 'scaling' effect might be tolerable!?!?!?

> Printing to the HP inkjet: one sheet printed on both sides, as expected. Image width 7.82" on both pages, close enough. Margins on page 1 are 0.37" on the left, 0.31" on the right; margins on page 2 are equal, that is, image was centered. But top and bottom were cropped on page 1, and the bottom was cropped on page 2, to about 0.4 to 0.5". Not good.

That's bad news: the 0.4" and 0.5" margins -- too much error. On my trials, usually the margins are no more that 2 points off (2 pt = 1/36 in) and sometimes no more than 1 point. With "Use System Printing" active, that is. That's Tolerable! Usually!

> I also got an extra printout, on the default printer (the Brother laser), of course no duplex, two separate pages on one side only. Image was 7.82" x 10.38" (width OK, height oversize), margins OK top and sides and therefore undersize on the bottom.

I checked again, first with the HP and then with the Epson. With the HP 'offline' two print jobs were sent, the first being the usual 'untitled' guy and the other had a proper name. So behaviour on the HP is consistent, and poor, with what I saw yesterday.

With the Epson:
The power was ON, but at the Epson print queue, I told it to 'Pause'. When the print job(s?) was sent to the queue, the Epson software wanted to know if it should 'Resume' the printer or "Add to Queue". I choose "Add to Queue" but the Epson ignored that advice and began printing the file. I managed to halt it but not before one page had been needlessly printed.

Lesson? Yes, some piece of software is not responding to a user's request. Surely "Add to Queue" does not mean: print the bugger, then add the same print job to the queue. Eventually, I had to 'Delete' the print job in the Epson, and, as a result, for the first time an entry in the print queue remains yet is marked completed. However, with the printer power turned off, I wonder why "Printer Ready" is the message from the print queue. But that is neither here nor there. I guess "Printer Ready" means that print jobs can be sent to the queue for later execution. So it seems:

One job to the Epson -- at least today
Two jobs to the HP -- at least yesterday and today

> Saving to PDF and printing from Preview:
>
> The print dialog opens with the default printer chosen, US Letter paper, showing top and bottom cropped. When I change the printer to the HP inkjet the paper size changes to Borderless 8.5 x ll and the preview shows no cropping. In the Preview pane, Scale 100% is selected. In the Layout pane I select two-sided printing, long edge binding.
>
> The output is on two separate sheets, not duplexed, even though I specified two-sided printing. Same result whether or not I check Collated. The image is oversize, 7.99" by 10.67", and the margins are correspondingly undersize.

Bloody Oath! I've experienced a neighbour to the above with the HP. I specified 2-sided on a two page print, and one sheet can out properly duplexed, but two more came out, the second and third sheets carrying printouts of pages 1 and 2 respectively!!!

> Saving to PDF and printing from Adobe Reader:
>
> Adobe Reader, like PgS, does not use the system interface, but the options are different. I got duplex printing, width and side margins OK, but cropped at the bottom on page 1 and at both top and bottom on page 2.
>
> Contrast with Don's result: Don got two jobs sent to the specified printer, I got one job to the specified printer and one to the default printer.

I tried that. With Epson as default, I asked PageStream to print to the HP. It sent an 'untitled' job to the HP but no job to the Epson. That's the way it should be!! I think.

> Don could not get correct margins when printing the PDF from Preview but I assume he got correct margins when printing from PgS with "Use System Printing."

Yes, "Use System Printing" was active, the margins were good, not perfect, but good enough. However, perhaps I was not clear about using the 'Preview' option on the 'Print' window of the Mac print system. I never bothered to print the job that was sent to the HP laserjet queue. It was when I tried to print a PDF version using the Mac program Preview.app that the reallly bad margins appeared. I don't have Adobe Reader.

> I could not get correct margins at all (though the scaling and margins I get printing from Preview on the Brother laser are close enough for my own purposes).
>
> When Don says the margins were too large, he didn't specify whether the image was scaled or cropped.

I don't know how to tell if the "image was scaled or cropped"! I just looked at the thumbnail that Preview.app provided and that critter was obviously not what I wanted. Also, the use of the noun 'image' puzzles me here! I think of 'image' as being related to a single photograph, but the use you imply must be different.

> That might be interesting but probably not of any practical importance, since unusable is unusable.

Unusable is unusable! I agree with that.

> I suspect (because Don and I got such different results) that at least some of the inaccuracies in scaling and margins are attributable to the printer hardware or firmware rather than the software on the computer.
>
> Answering (some of) Don's questions:
>
> "Auto Rotate" will change the paper from Portrait to Landscape or vice versa to fit the image or page being printed.

So when Preview.app presented its 'Print' pane, the Orientation was set to 'Portrait' although the actual page was landscape. In the thumbnail, the page was shown as if it were a portrait page, and "Auto Rotate" was check-marked as the default setting. Before printing, I had changed orientation to 'Landscape' which causes the thumbnail to appear in landscape perspective and I had turned "Auto Rotate" off. Is it possible that had I left the orientation as portrait and left "Auto Rotate" on that the printout would have been more true to the margins that had been set in PageStream? In the thumbnail they are 'clearly' too big whatever combination of knobs I choose.

> "Scale to Fit" will enlarge or shrink the image to fit the printable area of the paper. If the image is not the same shape as the space it's supposed to fit, "Print Entire Image" will leave some extra margins, while "Fill Entire Paper" will crop the image. "Scale to fit" is usually wrong when printing a PDF because it shrinks a full page image to fit the printable area.

How is the printable area of the paper determined? I know from my experiments with both the HP laserjet and the Epson inkjet that if margins of 2p (p = pica) are set in PageStream then a vertical line set 2p from either margin will print onto paper. Same for horizontal lines with respect to top/bottom. For the HP, I think it requires a margin of at least 1/4" which is less than 2p = 1/3". Don't know about the Epson.

With respect to "Scale to Fit", when I try "Print Entire Image" then the margins in the thumbnail do NOT change and appear to remain "way off". When I try "Fill Entire Paper" the margins jump but looked lopsided in the thumbnail!

I could never change the 'Scale' factor effectively, since on changing from 94% to 100% (say), I dare not hit the RETURN key since that will prematurely send a print job on its way. When I hit RETURN I can see the thumbnail 'jump' but then it disappears very quickly as the print job is sent aloft.

>> <<snip>>
>> Any advice re Preview.app would be appreciated.

Thank you for the explanations. Still don't see how I can effectively use Preview.app. In one trial, after fiddling with "Scale to Fit", the printout had shrunk the original to about half its former size!!!

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

On Dec 22, 2011, at 11:02 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>

[ snip, snip ... only keeping the questions I can answer ]

> On 22Dec2011, at 2:31 PM, Martin B. Brilliant wrote:

...

>> Some options ordinarily available in system printing, such as Preview pane, page size and orientation, scale, etc. are not there.
>
> I don't understand the relevance of the 'Preview' option in the setting in question. What you see in the PageStream view is surely the 'preview'. Is the intent to automatically create a PDF equivalent and then have Preview.app display the PDF??? Not clear to me!

The intent is indeed to create a PDF and display it. Probably not needed when you start with a WYSIWYG app like PageStream, but very useful when printing from a web browser. For example: a web page longer than can be displayed in the height of the screen should print in its entirety, even if it takes up several printed pages, more or less as it would appear onscreen. Usually it does, but sometimes only one screenful is printed, or the header is printed on one page and the text starts on the next page. The "Preview" warns about that without wasting paper.

Of course all that would be unnecessary if web pages were correctly coded. And our present dialog would be unnecessary if everything else were correctly coded.

...

>> For the HP inkjet printer the Layout pane has an option for two-sided printing, where I selected long-edge binding. The Paper Handling pane has an option to "Scale to fit paper size," which I left unchecked.
>
> Say you had created a doc with PageStream designed for A4 paper which is slightly longer and slightly narrower than US letter. If you were going to print to US letter sized paper, then maybe the "Scale to fit paper size" guy would be useful instead redesigning in PageStream. You should be able to maintain pagination and the 'scaling' effect might be tolerable!?!?!?

I think it would be most useful if you download a PDF with A4 page size but you only have US letter paper (or vice versa). It could be used to enlarge small pages to fit larger paper, useful if you want to understand the "fine print." You could use it to print an oversize page on your available paper, but the print might end up too small to be readable. It could be used to enlarge a small photo to fill the paper, but you might gain nothing but the ability to count the pixels.

...

>> "Scale to Fit" will enlarge or shrink the image to fit the printable area of the paper. If the image is not the same shape as the space it's supposed to fit, "Print Entire Image" will leave some extra margins, while "Fill Entire Paper" will crop the image. "Scale to fit" is usually wrong when printing a PDF because it shrinks a full page image to fit the printable area.
>
> How is the printable area of the paper determined? I know from my experiments with both the HP laserjet and the Epson inkjet that if margins of 2p (p = pica) are set in PageStream then a vertical line set 2p from either margin will print onto paper. Same for horizontal lines with respect to top/bottom. For the HP, I think it requires a margin of at least 1/4" which is less than 2p = 1/3". Don't know about the Epson.

I think the printable area of the paper is determined from information coded into the printer driver. If you try to print something outside the printable area, either the application software, or the driver, or the printer itself will suppress it. There is a small problem with that in Preview: when I first open the Print dialogue, the top and bottom are cropped in the thumbnail preview, but the printout will be OK.

...

> I could never change the 'Scale' factor effectively, since on changing from 94% to 100% (say), I dare not hit the RETURN key since that will prematurely send a print job on its way. When I hit RETURN I can see the thumbnail 'jump' but then it disappears very quickly as the print job is sent aloft.

I will pass on to you the secret I was told by someone else when I had the same difficulty. The scale you enter takes effect when you click in another writable box: Copies or Print to/from.

> ... Still don't see how I can effectively use Preview.app. In one trial, after fiddling with "Scale to Fit", the printout had shrunk the original to about half its former size!!!

Well, if you're going to scale to fit without auto rotate, you could end up scaling a portrait page to print on landscape paper the wrong way, or the reverse. That's the only explanation I can think of.

> Don Green Dragon
> fergdc@Shaw.ca

For my part, I will continue to save to PDF and print from Preview. That's because my final output is PDF, and the printout is only for proofing the PDF. Your problem is different.

--
Martin B. Brilliant - mbrilliant@alum.mit.edu
Mac OS X version 10.6.8
PageStream (non-pro) 5.0.5.8

Hi Martin,

> <<snip>>
> [ snip, snip ... only keeping the questions I can answer ]

Good idea!

|I don't understand the relevance of the 'Preview' option in the setting in question. What you see in the PageStream |view is surely the 'preview'. Is the intent to automatically create a PDF equivalent and then have Preview.app |display the PDF??? Not clear to me!
>
>
> The intent is indeed to create a PDF and display it. Probably not needed when you start with a WYSIWYG app like PageStream, but very useful when printing from a web browser. For example: a web page longer than can be displayed in the height of the screen should print in its entirety, even if it takes up several printed pages, more or less as it would appear onscreen. Usually it does, but sometimes only one screenful is printed, or the header is printed on one page and the text starts on the next page. The "Preview" warns about that without wasting paper.

That makes sense. In PageStream's case, it seems that getting rid of the Preview button would be appropriate. For example, when working with TextEdit.app and the PRINT pane is brought out, there is no 'Preview' button but one can still use <PDF -> Save as PDF...>. Sending extraneous jobs to a print queue does not seem like a good idea to me. Of course, a wise user of PageStream would not hit the 'Preview' button.

Last night I learned something about the HP print queue that was new to me. The HP was offline. However, as noted before, both the HP and the Epson were receiving the same print jobs. At some point, I wanted to try something on the HP so entered its print queue and specified that the irrelevant jobs be put "On Hold" thinking that when in that status they would not print. On putting the HP online, it started printing and printed one page before I managed to 'Delete' the jobs. So in order to have this not happen again, I leave the input tray empty -- there is but one.

> Of course all that would be unnecessary if web pages were correctly coded. And our present dialog would be unnecessary if everything else were correctly coded.

I've only been checking the thumbnails when about to print from Safari, but, as you note, it would be much more accurate to check first via the 'Preview' option. Thanks for that.

>>> For the HP inkjet printer the Layout pane has an option for two-sided printing, where I selected long-edge binding. The Paper Handling pane has an option to "Scale to fit paper size," which I left unchecked.
>>
>> Say you had created a doc with PageStream designed for A4 paper which is slightly longer and slightly narrower than US letter. If you were going to print to US letter sized paper, then maybe the "Scale to fit paper size" guy would be useful instead redesigning in PageStream. You should be able to maintain pagination and the 'scaling' effect might be tolerable!?!?!?
>
> I think it would be most useful if you download a PDF with A4 page size but you only have US letter paper (or vice versa). It could be used to enlarge small pages to fit larger paper, useful if you want to understand the "fine print." You could use it to print an oversize page on your available paper, but the print might end up too small to be readable. It could be used to enlarge a small photo to fill the paper, but you might gain nothing but the ability to count the pixels.

It certainly has useful potential, but in the situation at hand I don't see how to determine an appropriate scale factor other than making guesses and then printing which is spectacularly inefficient. Maybe it is not possible because of the manner in which the OS handles input in popups, but in the case of the 'Print' panes it is really annoying (to me) to have a RETURN key interpreted as "I'm done, go and print it". That does not happen on an Amiga. One has to click the 'Print' button which I think is the proper approach, but ...... Ah! With your tip below, one could at least get within "eyeball range".

>> <<snip>>
>> How is the printable area of the paper determined? I know from my experiments with both the HP laserjet and the Epson inkjet that if margins of 2p (p = pica) are set in PageStream then a vertical line set 2p from either margin will print onto paper. Same for horizontal lines with respect to top/bottom. For the HP, I think it requires a margin of at least 1/4" which is less than 2p = 1/3". Don't know about the Epson.
>
> I think the printable area of the paper is determined from information coded into the printer driver. If you try to print something outside the printable area, either the application software, or the driver, or the printer itself will suppress it. There is a small problem with that in Preview: when I first open the Print dialogue, the top and bottom are cropped in the thumbnail preview, but the printout will be OK.

It will!?!?!? Oh, so the 'cropping' you have spoken to is automatic!

Hmmmm! Well ..... last night I ran across a printout that I'm confident was printed via Preview.app and in which the margins were correctly printed, close enough anyway. How did I get that printout?? Cannot recall.

>> I could never change the 'Scale' factor effectively, since on changing from 94% to 100% (say), I dare not hit the RETURN key since that will prematurely send a print job on its way. When I hit RETURN I can see the thumbnail 'jump' but then it disappears very quickly as the print job is sent aloft.
>
> I will pass on to you the secret I was told by someone else when I had the same difficulty. The scale you enter takes effect when you click in another writable box: Copies or Print to/from.

Ah Hah! Thanks for that tip. I'll try it out. And did! By changing the thumbnail by 1% increments I suspect I could have printed my troublesome file at least close to what I want, but did not hit the 'Print' button!

> For my part, I will continue to save to PDF and print from Preview. That's because my final output is PDF, and the printout is only for proofing the PDF. Your problem is different.

Well ..... as long as it works for you, why not? Thanks for the info.

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca