Genealogy Printers 0 Report post Posted April 10, 2006 When trying to print a 22 foot x 3 foot chart the print stops at the last half an inch and is incomplete. Following a telephone conversation with Robin Lamacraft we tried various methods to overcome this problem, first of all we made the canvas size 8 inches larger than the chart in width. The chart was placed on the wider canvas but all the blank space was on the right of the chart, we required the chart to have an equal amount of blank space at both ends. We then grouped all items on the chart and then tried to move the chart over to the right so that there was a larger border of blank space on the left side of the chart. When the chart was moved some of the elements were out of position, it appeared that they had not become part of the grouping process. Is there anything that can be done to overcome this problem. Many thanks Ron Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
John Moran 0 Report post Posted April 12, 2006 When trying to print a 22 foot x 3 foot chart the print stops at the last half an inch and is incomplete. . . . . Is there anything that can be done to overcome this problem. Many thanks Ron <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ron- Which operating system? Which printer driver? What printer resolution? Regards, John Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Genealogy Printers 0 Report post Posted April 12, 2006 I don't think it's a printer or computer error, I think it's an error in the program. I also think this problem is only going to be detected by people using wide format printers on very large charts. The original chart was 24 foot wide by 3 foot deep and was showing as being on one page, there was a 2 inch margin on the top, bottom and right side of the chart and a one inch margin on the left but when the chart was printed (it's printed from right to left so the left side of the chart comes out of the printer last) the one inch margin appeared not to be there and the print stopped just one inch short of the end, chopping the first box on the chart in half. The obvious solution was to make the canvas size larger, which we did, however the extra canvas was always to the right side of the chart and this required the entire chart to be moved over to the right to compensate, however this is where another problem occurred, as soon as the chart was moved, even by a single nudge, certain elements moved seriously out of place by up to 2 inches, even when all the elements of the chart had been grouped before moving. I've been talking to Robin Lamacraft in Australia and he reckons there's a problem with the orthogonal lines element on the program. In the end we had to ask the customer to redraw the charts and include an empty box on the left side of the chart a few inches to the left of the first box on the chart, this had the effect of pushing the whole chart over to the right and it cured the problem. the empty box (which again was not printed in full) could be trimmed off the end of the print. Robin has evidently mentioned the problem to the program developers but they have yet to do something to correct the error. Regards Ron www.genealogyprinters.com Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
John Moran 0 Report post Posted April 12, 2006 Ron- Even on letter sized narrative reports, TMG's display of printable area on the page may be overly simplistic. For instance, older Epson Photo Inkjet printers, in particular, may be incapable of printing closer to the bottom edge than 0.56 or at best .25 inches on letter sized paper. TMG may take this into account in some instances, but it is not obvious in the printer setup which may show 0.5 inch margins. Chart printing margins may be derived from entirely different parameters, though it would seem that "parts is parts". In some cases, in competing chart printing software and better Word Processing software (i.e.MSWord). Printer Setup may show that these inkjet printers are physically incapable of printing edge to edge and top to bottom on letter or other sized paper. In most cases, with modern inkjet printers on narrative reports, the results are satisfactory in TMG, even if TMG does not correctly display unprintable bands around the edges, and displays .5,.5,.5,.5 or 0,0,0,0 instead. Regards, John Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
John Moran 0 Report post Posted April 16, 2006 FWIW. Today I found a link to a photography forum which has just been shut down to new posts, so I will not reference it. One poster suggests that the Epson 2200 printer will not print borderless with a matte cartridge installed. Another agrees that the option is not available, but suggests that the Epson 2400 will print full bleed borderless in matte. I happen to have installed the Epson 2200 printer driver for experimentation and found the following in Help.-John M. (quote Epson) " Borderless Prints using the entire area of the paper, allowing you to print documents with no margins and to produce “full-bleed” printouts of images. When Sheet Feeder is selected as the Paper Source setting, this feature prints to all four edges of the paper. When Roll Paper is selected as the Paper Source setting, this feature prints to the right and left edges of the paper. The media available for the Borderless feature varies by printer. See the printer’s Reference Guide for details. Note: If your application has margin settings, make sure they are set to zero before printing. When using this feature with roll paper, you need to use your image-editing software to make the image 4 mm wider than the roll paper. Printing with this feature selected takes longer than for normal printing. When Sheet Feeder is selected as the Paper Source setting, or when Roll Paper is selected as the Paper Source setting and Cut Sheet Mode is selected as the Roll Paper Option, this feature enlarges the image to a size slightly larger than the paper size; therefore, the portion of the image that extends beyond the edges of the paper will not be printed. Print quality may decline or ink may smear in the top and bottom areas of the printout when printing on media other than that designated in the printer’s Reference Guide. It is recommended that you print a single sheet to check quality before printing large jobs. All rights reserved." (unqoute Epson) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RobinL 0 Report post Posted April 22, 2006 .... this required the entire chart to be moved over to the right to compensate, however this is where another problem occurred, as soon as the chart was moved, even by a single nudge, certain elements moved seriously out of place by up to 2 inches, even when all the elements of the chart had been grouped before moving. I've been talking to Robin Lamacraft in Australia and he reckons there's a problem with the orthogonal lines element on the program. ..... Robin has evidently mentioned the problem to the program developers but they have yet to do something to correct the error. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Just to put this in perspective, here is a simple example of how the orthogonal line code in VCF does not preserve user edited line positioning. In any project with a family of more than one child, (1) create a two generation descendant chart. (2) about double the chart canvas height. (3) select a child box and drag it down. (4) select the orthogonal line joining that child to their parent. (5) using a handle on a corner of that line drag the line up to be in line with the other children lines. (6) select part of the chart including the parent and the moved child box. (7) Now nudge the grouped chart. The user adjusted line is redrawn crossing over the other boxes. BUT this line is within the grouped object and can't be selected for another adjustment without first ungrouping the previously grouped. It would be the user's expectation that everything contained entirely within the grouped object would remain in the same layout when the grouped object is moved. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
John Moran 0 Report post Posted April 24, 2006 Just to put this in perspective, here is a simple example of how the orthogonal line code in VCF does not preserve user edited line positioning. In any project with a family of more than one child, (1) create a two generation descendant chart. (2) about double the chart canvas height. (3) select a child box and drag it down. (4) select the orthogonal line joining that child to their parent. (5) using a handle on a corner of that line drag the line up to be in line with the other children lines. (6) select part of the chart including the parent and the moved child box. (7) Now nudge the grouped chart. The user adjusted line is redrawn crossing over the other boxes. BUT this line is within the grouped object and can't be selected for another adjustment without first ungrouping the previously grouped. It would be the user's expectation that everything contained entirely within the grouped object would remain in the same layout when the grouped object is moved. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Robin- Thank you for the clarification. Apparently this thread does not pertain to Wintel98 math co-processor problems which may also have been described by some as causing lines to go flying off in all directions. As to the two generation chart described above, as displayed on a large format HP printer driver set to 36x96 inches in landscape mode, with the canvas at 90 inches width, it is possible to see how the horizontal element of doglegs to the child row boxes do change with vertical movement of the child boxes. It seems that the position of the horizontal elements are calculated to be half the distance between certain contact points in the parental boxes and in the child boxes. Thus, a standard display might show all horizontal elements of the doglegs to be shown at three units down out of six total. Nudging just about anything in the chart causes the position of these horizontal elements to be recalculated, so that the final up and down nudging may need to be redone. As to the unprintable paper area on the left and right sides of a large format printout, I could find nothing in two different drivers that suggested the appropriate number. It would seem that trial and error in sizing the canvas versus selecting the paper size might be required. It may be that this is part of the problem that Ron was experiencing: Selecting a canvas size that infringed on the physically unprintable area. As to using "Select All" and nudging an entire small chart across more than five feet of paper space, that did not seem to be a problem, although it took a little time. Holding the "Right Arrow" key down for almost a minute at a time caused everything to jump to the right an inch or so. Using "Select All" and "Cut and Paste" seemed to start things over from scratch at the left upper margin. I don't see this thread necessarily as a grouping problem, but possibly a dogleg recalculation problem, compounded by selection of too large a canvas for a given paper size. Disclaimer: As in prior posts of mine, which may have been "maintained" into oblivion this week by the forum administrator, I do this vicariously. I have no large format printers. John M. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites