Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

So I wanted to make a 16x24 print onto 24" roll paper.

In the Epson 7900 print setup, I saw 16x24 in the size list and selected that. Then I added the image to the queue and it showed the print nicely filling up the page (23.766 x 15.766).

But when I printed it, in round numbers the print only used 16" of the 24" paper width and 24" of paper length. So it used 24" x 24" of paper rather than the 16" x 24" of paper I expected.

Looking into it, I see that the first number in Epson's size list is the width of roll paper, at least when using roll paper. I should have selected 24x16 instead of 16x24 because I'm using 24" roll paper rather than 16" roll paper.

With a little luck I will remember this lesson.

But in case I don't, is there a way that QImage could have made it more clear in the preview what was about to happen?

Tom

This is the reason why I switch on the option "PrintPreview" in the printer driver.
But remember:
This preview is not color-managed. It looks awfull, but the preview shows how the pictures are placed on the paper.

Winfried

All you have to do is make the printable area large enough to handle the 24" width, and Qimage will print the 24" across the roll and the 16" will be the length of the print.

Set the user defined page size to 24.02 and check the borderless box. Set the print length to 16.50 inches.
That will give you a printable area of 24.01 across the width by 16.497.
That will accommodate the print size.
To get the print size, simply click Custom in the Print Properties, and Enter Specific Size: 16 x 24

You didn't have enough printable width, so Qimage was smart enough to turn your print around so the it will print.

You cannot fit 24 x 16 into (23.766 x 15.766).

Hope that is clear.
Fred

Thanks. Using the driver's print preview would indeed have warned me about the problem. That's something I rarely use. Maybe I should make it a habit.

Tom

Fred,

You misunderstood the problem.

I had told the printer to use a page size of 16" wide by 24" long. That would have been OK if 16" roll paper was loaded. But I had 24" roll paper and should have picked a page size in the driver setup of 24x16: 24" wide to use the 24" roll paper, and 16" of length.

The image was added to the queue with fit to page, so the 24 vs 23.766 wasn't the issue. I was using 24x16 in nominal terms in my description. But I expected it to be the smaller 23.766 x 15.766, and indeed that is what QImage gave me.

The Epson driver and Qimage did exactly what I asked for. But not what I intended.

The suggestion to always use the driver's preview would have caught it. My query was to see if now or in the future QImage would have some way to warn of this problem.

Tom

Sorry, Tom, but I doubt if I got it wrong. You wanted to make the 24" side of your print fit the width of the 24" roll/
The printable area when you set the page size to 24.0 is only 23.766.
You cannot fit 24 into 23.776.
So to utilize the entire 24" roll, the user, must tell the Driver that the page is 24.02". Then click Borderless.
Now the reported printable area is 24.01 and the 24" print will fit across the 24" roll.
You aren't the first one to come across this.

As for a warning, you have one! Check the printable area first.
Second warning: If you told Qimage to place a 16 x 24 on a smaller printable area, it tells you it needs more paper by displaying  a red 2x or 3x on teh preview panel.

Good luck,
Fred

Ok Fred, here's the long version:

What I did first was use a 16x24 page definition but with 24" roll paper. You can see in the driver's page definition the page width is 16" and the page height is 24". So it only used 16" of the 24" wide roll paper, but 24" of length.


I added the image as fit to page and that is what QImage did.

 But you can see from the preview that the bottom of the page (the end of the paper that comes out of the printer first) is only 16" wide, not 24".

Not what I wanted or expected.

What I should have done is in the next message.

Here is what I should have done.

The page is now 24" wide which matches the 24" roll paper I was using.

The QImage preview looks the same. It again fit the image nicely to the page dimensions.

But the printer's preview shows the bottom of the paper as 24" wide rather than 16" wide.

So the moral of the story is that with roll paper, a page A by B isn't the same as B by A. QImage doesn't give any indication of the problem, and perhaps it might not be possible to know that there is a problem. QImage obviously knows the page width, and if it also knows the roll width it could give a warning. If it doesn't know the roll width then never mind.

Tom

Hi Tom,

The printer doesn't know or care what the physical size of paper is used. You have to enter the size (or width if roll paper) - it will check to see if the size and type/weight and feed method are compatible  - it does not itself measure the width, you have to tell it that. That size will be communicated to qimage, since qimage is another step away from the paper. So if the printer can't determine the actual size of paper, I can't see how qi can. The print preview - you need to look carefully, since you have said 16 inch wide, the preview fills that with your image, the same as for the 24 inch width, apart from the top of page marking (so your next question would be why is the image going to be 24 inches high when I asked for 16). If there was a warning generated every time qi needed to rotate an image to get it to fit on a page, it would soon be ignored. I think in most area measurements we use 'width by height'.

I bet you don't make the same mistake again... at least not for the next few days ;)

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,

Actually, the printer does measure the roll paper width. It knows the paper width and remaining length of the roll. I once thought the printer had 13" roll paper when in fact it was 10" and the printer driver complained.

Tom