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tomstearns

Roll printing

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If I attempt to print a chart on my Epson SP2200 using roll paper I see breaks at each page end (roughly 11" apart.) Apparently charts are drawn as though they will be tiled onto letter-size paper.

 

How can I instruct the printer to print Continuous Form? Other applications (FTM) have this option in the printer setup and the result is a seamless chart output.

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If you are talking about the output of Visual Chartform (VCF) Box Charts, then you must set up the Page Setup in VCF to know the final size of the chart page. This must be done via the Printer Properties settings. BTW: The Epson driver will have a maximum size that can be printed on roll (can be as small as 45in, Epson 7600 has a limit at 90in), so that may still mean that your chart will be output on several pages. You can print further than this with the installation of RIP software (usually at considerable expense).

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To followup, Epson printers only print maximum of 16 bits (32,768) pixels in the long direction without tiling. Clip this down to 32,000 pixels in Adobe Photoshop and divide by 360 pixels/inch and you get ~ 88.9 inches, plus margins. Current Epson Desktop printers output half that length, ~44 inches at 720 dpi.

 

FTM may appear to give longer charts by retaining 16 bit tiling compatibility with older perforated "computer paper" dot matrix impact printer drivers and a few others from the injet age. This was once referred to as banner printing. Most modern desktop printer drivers do not support printing tiled contiguous sheets with zero paper advance between raster printouts, perhaps because the manufactures to not want to handle the support calls for mis-matched images.

 

The irony of this is that FTM can seem to give longer printouts than TMG's VCF on a Win 98 platform, but in reality VCF can far exceed FTM at higher resolution on an NT/XP 32 bit GDI platform, where FTM may be limited to 55 inches at 600 dpi with stock NT large format HP printer drivers.

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If I attempt to print a chart on my Epson SP2200 using roll paper I see breaks at each page end (roughly 11" apart.) Apparently  charts  are  drawn as though  they will be tiled onto letter-size paper.

 

How can I instruct the printer to print Continuous Form? Other applications  (FTM) have this option in the printer setup and the result is a seamless chart output.

Tom-

Keeping in mind that I no longer actually buy color ink, (although the wife thinks several cartridges every now and then is no problem for her Epson All-in-one) and that I never never actually bought any computer printer/plotter capable of printing wider than 8 1/2 inches (although I did have a wide carriage Smith-Corona manual portable typewriter at one time), this is what your Epson Stylus Photo 2200 driver seems to indicate when downloaded onto my XP sustem.

 

Maximum User defined paper width x length of 12.95 inches (~33 cm) x 129.00 inches (327.67 cm).

 

Standard minimum non-printable area of .12 inches on sides and top/left.

Standard minimum non-printable area of .55 inches on bottom/right in Landscape mode.

With "Minimize margins" selected in driver Advanced settings in Control Panel, non-printable area of .12 inches all around.

 

Printer resolutions from 360 dpi (or perhaps effectively less in draft mode) up to 2880 dpi, depending on paper quality, are selectable, even at these chart sizes.

 

All of these resolutions *may* be operable in TMG VCF on Win XP, but don't necessarily expect more than 88 inches at 360 dpi quality on FTM in either Win 98 or XP for a single raster print.

 

If this *standard* SP 2200 printer driver is indeed capable of "continuous/contiguous", non-advance of the paper between rasters banner printing, then perhaps relatively longer charts could seemingly be obtained in FTM. But not really in the 16 bit GDI: 32,767/8 pixels is the limit, even if scaling up of Truetype vector fonts with tiling makes it look better than a straight raster print.

 

Note, non-printable margin numbers were derrived from FTM 10 Printer setup by selecting Zero (0) inches all around and letting windows reset.

 

Or so it seems in theory. Actual mileage may vary with real paper and ink. Good luck.

John

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