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Author Topic: v2019.113 issues/comments  (Read 5345 times)
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« on: February 05, 2019, 11:35:41 PM »

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u

v2019.113      Feb 5, 2019

Priority: Med

2019.113 offers minor improvements and fixes for the auto roll length feature.  See the auto roll length demo video: https://youtu.be/rtvLdm-eiWU?hd=1

Mike
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Geraldo Garcia
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« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2019, 07:53:40 PM »

Hello Mike,

The auto roll length function is working almost perfectly for me when I specify both dimensions (custom -> enter specific size). The only problem is it returns a page size slightly longer than needed. If I turn the function off and select "set paper length" it shaves about a centimeter of excess.

When trying to use a custom size specifying only one dimension it fails almost every time and behaves erratically. When trying to place an image larger than the actual length sometimes it crops the image (with crop set to off), sometimes it shrinks the image to fit the paper. When placing multiple images sometimes it overstretches the paper leaving half of the page empty.

Printers tested: Canon Pro 4000 (regular driver and XPS), Canon IPF 8400
Windows 10 pro

I am out of the office now, but tomorrow I can send some screenshots and additional info if necessary.

Thanks again for this new feature, I am sure you will get it working 100% soon.
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« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2019, 12:50:55 PM »

Hello Mike,

The auto roll length function is working almost perfectly for me when I specify both dimensions (custom -> enter specific size). The only problem is it returns a page size slightly longer than needed. If I turn the function off and select "set paper length" it shaves about a centimeter of excess.

This is by design.  The auto roll length leaves about 1/4 inch slack on the top/bottom because with many roll printers it is not a good idea to have no leading/trailing space, particularly when using a cutter.  If you use something like the "trim" option separately, that goes for the minimums.  Auto roll length is also designed so that when you turn auto roll length off and go back to page based placement, the auto arrangement of prints stays the same (prints are not moved to a second page for example).

Quote
When trying to use a custom size specifying only one dimension it fails almost every time and behaves erratically. When trying to place an image larger than the actual length sometimes it crops the image (with crop set to off), sometimes it shrinks the image to fit the paper. When placing multiple images sometimes it overstretches the paper leaving half of the page empty.

Printers tested: Canon Pro 4000 (regular driver and XPS), Canon IPF 8400
Windows 10 pro

I am out of the office now, but tomorrow I can send some screenshots and additional info if necessary.

Thanks again for this new feature, I am sure you will get it working 100% soon.

With the current version, you do have to be careful with custom sizing options.  The feature was designed to work best with specific sizes and with so many custom sizing options available, you can get yourself into situations that don't make sense.  You could, for example, size by one dimension by picking the long side, and the short side could be too big to fit on the width.  Since the paper width is set and not modifiable, you've created a situation where the print (as specified) cannot fit on the page no matter how long you make the media length.  The print then must be sized to dimensions that will end up fitting the width and that, in turn, will affect what happens when you turn crop off/on.  So essentially you've picked "long side" sizing but since the print won't fit, the software had to size by the short side instead.

There are other examples where certain specialized sizing functions may conflict with automatically picking a roll length and we are working through those in future versions.  For now, it's best to just specify print size to avoid such conflicts.

Regards,
Mike
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StephenG
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« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2019, 07:03:07 AM »

I like the auto-roll feature and will find it very useful. It leaves a bit more than 1/4 inch slack with my P9000 setup. In Intelli-Centre it leaves about 1/2 inch top and bottom, before the extra slack that my P9000 driver adds by default. In Intelli-Cut/Space it leaves about 3/4 inch at the bottom, again this is in addition to the driver slack. This driver slack is approx 2/3 inch.

I don't need this much slack on my P9000 so my reaction was to set up a layout with auto-roll on, using Intelli-Space, and then turn it off and hit CTRL-W to trim off the extra space at the bottom.

The CTRL-W command behaves differently now in the Intelli-modes. Previously, in V2019.110, it used to just trim off the space at the bottom, and leave the prints as placed. It also asked for yes/no confirmation. But now it removes all excess space and bunches up the prints, without a confirmation dialog. Pretty much the same behaviour as CTRL-L (which still asks for confirmation, btw)

If I switch to, for example, Compact or Optimal then it behaves pretty much as it did before, but it leaves a touch more slack than it used to. It used to happily chop the page down to 4mm from the last print, now it leaves 6.3mm.
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Ernst Dinkla
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« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2019, 01:29:09 PM »

Hello Mike,

Reading the Auto Roll length announcement I thought 'not for me with a Z3200'. The video proofed that. But with the knowledge that the other feature Roll Paper Trimming worked more or less with the Z3200 PS3 driver I could not resist trying this one out with that PS3 driver. No Qimage warning produced so I guess you only tried the PCL3 driver and have the warning triggered for that driver or printer identity. I have the Z3200-PS revision A printer.

The first trial seemed to work right away and ignored even the Preview choice setting in the PS3 driver. Unexpected and no cheap paper on the printer for the trial so cancelled it immediately on the printer. I noticed that the max length of that Auto Roll was something like 1500 mm. I thought you added an arbitrary length for it as I have printed longer lengths. Exploring it more it seems to be the length of initially selected print page (custom or OEM) in the driver. I could extend that to 3480mm roughly by changing the initial print page to that length. 5000mm did not work. When Auto Roll Length is clicked on the driver defaults to Letter size internally. That Letter size does not show in Qimage but the Auto Roll Length shows.

When I go over the 3480mm length the Auto Roll Length feature does not split to two appropriate lengths for the images contained but multiple ones depending on the image sizes loaded on the print page. At least with about 14  400x500 mm images on a 903x3480mm print page and loading the 15th it goes for 7 lengths each filled with two images and one missing. Taking out one image it goes back to 14 images on 3057mm print page length, longer than set in the initial print page so there is more to gain I guess. Adding and deleting images in different quantities delivers odd combinations of print page lengths and not always the most economic image nesting. 2x 7 images on two print page lengths wastes more than 8 and 6 on slightly different print page lengths for the image sizes I mentioned. Could be some differences in the image sizes loaded. 

The 903x3057mm trial just ended with a print that length on cheap paper. This time the driver Preview choice worked also. It took an awful long time in processing to that Preview state though. For production somewhat shorter print page lengths processed after another gains time, processing done while the printer is already busy with the first length is a better choice.

So thank you Mike and please do not add a warning for that PS printer/driver model. I will explore the feature + that driver more.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

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« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2019, 03:49:57 PM »

Qimage negotiates with the driver to determine if the "User Defined" media size is available from the driver.  Some versions of the Z driver may list this option while others do not.  The ones that do have a "User Defined" entry for media size are bugged and do not use that size properly.  DMPAPER_USER (which enumerates to a value of 256 in Windows) is a reserved word that is to be used for user defined sizes.  When this value is set in the driver, the driver is supposed to use the media size defined by software (the values specified by DM_PAPERWIDTH and DM_PAPERLENGTH) and display a media name of "User Defined" or "Custom".  Instead, the Z drivers are incorrectly using this reserved word as a predefined size: ANSI A.

So... when Qimage sets the media size to "User Defined" and then you open the driver properties, the Z driver shows either ANSI A or Letter as the size.  Worse, if you close the driver with "OK", the driver will override whatever custom size was set in Qimage with 8.5 x 11 and that will foul up your layout.  Again, this problem surfaces due to the Z drivers improperly trying to assign their own predefined value to what is a Windows system constant.  In the end, I decided not to "lock out" Z drivers specifically or try to work around its bugs; instead Qimage will querry the driver and work as it should.  If, after that, the job doesn't work properly, that's on the manufacturer!  The proper procedure for any software when working with custom media sizes is:

(1) Querry the driver to see if the "user defined" media size flag is set, indicating the driver allows custom media sizes (this flag is set for all Z drivers)
(2) Querry the driver to see if the "user defined" media size actually exists in the driver's media size table
(3) If 1 or 2 fail, display a message to the user that "user defined" sizes are not supported for this printer and stop here
(4) Set the media type to "user defined"
(5) Set the media width and length
(6) Read back driver settings to confirm that setting media size was successful

#2 above is where some Z drivers may pass or fail.  Some of them don't even have the "user defined" entry and some do, and the ones that do: theyll have the conflict mentioned above.

Simply put, you can try it but YMMV depending on the specific bugs in your specific Z driver.  Also keep in mind that Windows itself has a 129 inch limit for paper length (3276mm).  So as your paper length extends beyond 3276mm, Qimage will automatically make two pages and will optimize the prints on the two pages so you get the minimum amount of wasted space.  Obviously if you have one 3200mm print and one 8x10, the page length has to be at least 3200mm and you'll end up with one 8x10 on page 2.  No other way to do it: the page length has to be big enough for the biggest print.  So the efficiency of multi-page auto roll length is highly dependent on the print sizes you are using.  If you are printing a bunch of smaller size prints, it'll work very well.  If you have a few very large prints and then just a handful of smaller ones, it might be best to simply print the big prints first and then do the smaller ones as a separate job.

Closing notes: Due to the Windows built-in limit of 129 in (3276mm), the auto roll length feature cannot be used if you intend to print any one print that is larger than that.  You can specify lengths longer than that in the driver (properties) but lengths beyond that limit are not "software settable".  In addition, due to the Z drivers reserved constant clash mentioned above, if you want to try auto roll length on the Z drivers, you'll have to set up all your driver properties in advance (paper type, quality, color management, and so on) before you activate the auto roll length feature and then avoid opening the driver properties after you start using auto roll length: because that driver bug/clash will wipe out the "user defined" media size setting when you "OK" out of the driver.  This disclaimer about not touching driver properties after turning auto roll length on only applies to HP printers; all drivers from other manufacturers work properly and don't have this issue.

Regards,
Mike
« Last Edit: February 09, 2019, 04:08:06 PM by admin » Logged
SignMeUpGraphics
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« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2019, 01:19:54 AM »

Is there any chance we can get the auto-roll function to work with TIFF export?
I'd love to be able to just set a width and have it auto calculate the length and be able to export to file.

We do not print our files directly through the print driver as we use a RIP (which cannot do some of the things QImage can do).
There are certain cases where we need to process files thru QImage to a TIFF then just print that out as one file via our RIP.
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