mende@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Mende Pie) (04/21/88)
Does anyone know how to have a postscript printer(laserwriter, QMS800, ...) to print to the *exact* edges of a page. I have an application where I am using the standard multipage print hack and would like to have ~1/2 borders on the bottom and the left side of a page and no (and I realy mean no) borders on the top and right. /Bob... -- mende@aramis.rutgers.edu rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!mende mende@zodiac.bitnet Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) (04/21/88)
In article <Apr.21.00.14.14.1988.20012@porthos.rutgers.edu> mende@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Mende Pie) writes: > Does anyone know how to have a postscript printer(laserwriter, >QMS800, ...) to print to the *exact* edges of a page. I have an >application where I am using the standard multipage print hack and >would like to have ~1/2 borders on the bottom and the left side of a >page and no (and I realy mean no) borders on the top and right. I have heard of a hack for the Apple LaserWriter to get closer to the edge. You need an A4 tray, and some tape. on the left inside of the paper tray area of te printer are three feelers that determine the tray type. On the tray are two pegs. bridge between them with tape. The printer will now think that you have an American Letter tray. Then print Letter size on an A4 sheet. Other than that, don't expect any printer to do this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Alexander M. Rosenberg - INTERNET: alibaba@ucscb.ucsc.edu - Yoyodyne - - Crown College, UCSC - UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba- Propulsion - - Santa Cruz, CA 95064 - BITNET:alibaba%ucscb@ucscc.BITNET - Systems - - (408) 426-8869 - Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer - :-) - - - so nobody cares what I say. - -
kjk@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Ken Keirnan) (04/21/88)
In article <Apr.21.00.14.14.1988.20012@porthos.rutgers.edu> mende@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Mende Pie) writes: > > Does anyone know how to have a postscript printer(laserwriter, >QMS800, ...) to print to the *exact* edges of a page. I have an [ remaining text deleted ] Sorry Bob. Because of the method used inside most (all?) desk top laser printers to handle paper, there is an unprintable region around the paper edges. The following tiny postscript program will show you the printable region for your printer: 0 0 moveto clippath fill showpage It (the program) will fill the printable region with black. On some laser printers it is frustrating to see just how much space around the paper edges is unusable. Ken Keirnan -- Ken Keirnan -- Pacific Bell -- {ihnp4,sun,ames,pyramid}!pacbell!pbhyf!kjk San Ramon, California kjk@pbhyf.PacBell.COM
oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster) (04/23/88)
Print to the edge of the paqper the way the pros do: print normally on
oversize paper, then slice off the extra. (You don't think professional
printers let ink get into the works do you?)
You can print cut marks outside the final area, to help align the slices.
This technique will let you print multi-part banners as big as you want,
where the pieces abut exactly. Just, each piece will be smaller than your
original paper size.
--- David Phillip Oster --When you asked me to live in sin with you
Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu --I didn't know you meant sloth.
Uucp: {uwvax,decvax,ihnp4}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edumar@athena.mit.edu (Mark A. Rosenstein) (04/23/88)
The question was asked how to get a postscript printer to print on
that last quarter-inch of paper out by the edges. Someone suggested
getting an A4 sized paper tray, and using tape to fool the sensors
into thinking there is actually A4 sized paper instead of 8.5x11 paper
in the try.
Beware, this could damage your printer.
If you've ever had something offset printed that needed ink out to the
edges, you've discovered that they charge quite a bit more. This is
because they must print it on larger paper and cut it down after it is
printed. The same thing applies to a laser printer. Actually print
it on larger paper, then use a paper cutter on it.
If you don't do it this way, the printer will be depositing {ink,
toner} in places in the printer that shouldn't get any, and may
eventually cause damage. Just a few sheets printed this way will
probably look OK, but don't keep doing it, unless you intend to
perform the periodic maintenance on your printer much more often than
it normally needs. And there may be more lasting problems.
-Mark
mar@athena.mit.edu ...!mit-eddie!athena.mit.edu!mar
Variables won't and Constants aren't.alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) (04/23/88)
Sorry, I should have been clearer. Using an A4 tray will only get you closer to the edge, and it will not deposit ink all over the place. Since A4 paper is smaller, this was me just dropping a neat trick I knew, and not an actual suggestion as to how to accomplish what was requested. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Alexander M. Rosenberg - INTERNET: alibaba@ucscb.ucsc.edu - Yoyodyne - - Crown College, UCSC - UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba- Propulsion - - Santa Cruz, CA 95064 - BITNET:alibaba%ucscb@ucscc.BITNET - Systems - - (408) 426-8869 - Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer - :-) - - - so nobody cares what I say. - -
mp@laura.UUCP (Michael Pickers) (04/23/88)
In article <2929@saturn.ucsc.edu> alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) writes: > >I have heard of a hack for the Apple LaserWriter to get closer to the edge. >You need an A4 tray, and some tape. on the left inside of the paper tray >area of te printer are three feelers that determine the tray type. On the >tray are two pegs. bridge between them with tape. The printer will now think >that you have an American Letter tray. Then print Letter size on an A4 sheet. >Other than that, don't expect any printer to do this. > Oh, you don't need to mess arround in this way to get the same result. The only thing you need to do is to insert a line in your Postscript code at the beginning which says: letter That's all. This will override the default setting determined by the papertray. This works on a Apple Laserwriter+ with Rev.37 ROM's. I don't know about other configurations. But be aware that this will also offset the origin. Other valid papersize commands are: a4 letter note legal You can try it out with the following Poscript code: --- cut --- cut ---- newpath /inch { 72 mul } def /cm { 28.3465 mul } def /Times-Roman findfont 4 cm scalefont setfont /sp { 0.9 setgray clippath fill 0 setgray 8 cm 15 cm moveto show showpage } def letter (letter) sp note (note) sp legal (legal) sp a4 (a4) sp --- cut --- cut --- Have fun. Michael Pickers Computer Science Department, University of Dortmund IRB - Informatik Rechner Betriebsgruppe 4600 Dortmund 50, P.O. Box 500500, W.-Germany E-mail address UUCP: mp@unido.uucp (...uunet!unido!mp) BITNET: mp@unido.bitnet
lharris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Leonard Harris) (04/27/88)
(questions about using a4 size paper tray to print at edges)... How would a laserwriter know where not to deposit toner. As long as the image does not exceed the edges of the paper, toner will only be deposited on the drum where an image exists. /leonard
liam@cs.qmc.ac.uk (William Roberts) (04/30/88)
Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: Keywords: The limited printing area on the LaserWriter has always annoyed me. Try the following "beefed-up" code to display your available page area: clippath gsave 0.8 setgray fill grestore 14.4 setlinewidth 0 setgray stroke showpage The 14.4 line is 0.2 inches, but the path is the boundary of the clipping region, so the outer 0.1 inches get clipped off by the PostScript interpreter. Using commands like "letter" and so on will change the default clipping path and so have an effect on the rectangle that gets printed. However, if you expect to see your LaserWriter print a grey rectangle with a 0.1 inch black border around it - think again! What you will get is a grey rectangle with a 0.1 inch black border round most of it, but there will be at least one edge where the black border is thinner or even completely missing. Why? The answer is that the printer *hardware* performs clipping as well, so PostScript is preparing a bitmap that the printer won't even bother to try to print. By putting sticky tape over the notches in the side of the paper tray you can trick the hardware into believing it has a different sized piece of paper, so it will change the clipping area appropriately (incidentally, PostScript uses those notches as well when deciding the default clipping path). How can you get the software clipping region inside the hardware clipping region, so that you at least get all of the bits that PostScript has so lovingly prepared? That is the function of the "setmargins" primitive: note also that the version 3.0 PostScript interpreter has fixed a bug/feature so that changing the margins doesn't change the meaning of (0,0) any more. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - can someone tell me how to tweak the horizontal & vertical position of the hardware clipping? I refuse to believe that they aren't adjusted by some variable resistor somewhere, but everytime I give the above lecture to an engineer/Apple techie/salesman I get blank looks and absolutely no information whatsoever. -- William Roberts ARPA: liam@cs.qmc.ac.uk (gw: cs.ucl.edu) Queen Mary College UUCP: liam@qmc-cs.UUCP LONDON, UK Tel: 01-975 5250
pegasys@daedalus (Pegasystems) (04/30/88)
Having seen a fair amount of blather about methods to print to the edge
of the paper on postscript printers i thought i'd mention that which
is being overlooked:
Postscript builds the image of the page in a memory based bitmap.
This bitmap has a fixed size set by default, tray function, or
framedevice (which is set by tray). The size of this bitmap is
limited by the printers memory and what operators are available to
change it. By default this is set to have a margin of 1/4" on all
sides of whatever the page size is.
The coordinate system is from the bottom left corner of the page.
This means that only those coordinates within the box defined by
18 , 18 x 595 , 775 will actually be on the paper.
There are in some (most?) printers a command that will move this
printable area around (very small amount) in order to handle
misallignment of the paper feed mechanism, this does not generaly
allow you to move the region as far as the edge of the paper.
Even so you will at best be producing copy that only reaches two
ajacent edges at once, not extending the printable area.
Mind you, even if you do get the imaging area to increace you will
bump up against the physical limitations of the printing engine that
the 1/4" margins were to handle consistently for all printers.
With regards to the use of A4 paper i'ts not quite what i want to
hand someone nor is it readily available (from what i've seen).
My recommendation is to print a reduced image with cut marks and
then photo-copy it with enlargment or print on 11x15" or some-such
with cut-marks.
By the way: I agree that this is an irritating hurdle and we need to
press the printer manufacturers to improve their engines.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The views of my employer do represent those of myself
By desoley@ontenv.UUCP (Norman S. Soley) (05/01/88)
alibaba@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alexander M. Rosenberg) writes: > I have heard of a hack for the Apple LaserWriter to get closer to the edge. > You need an A4 tray, and some tape. on the left inside of the paper tray > area of te printer are three feelers that determine the tray type. On the > tray are two pegs. bridge between them with tape. The printer will now think > that you have an American Letter tray. Then print Letter size on an A4 sheet. It would be a lot easier to just turn on manual feed and feed A4 sheets. But unless you're in Europe or the Canadian government what good does A4 do you? You can print to the edges on thinner paper. big deal. -- Norman Soley - Data Communications Analyst - Ontario Ministry of the Environment UUCP: utzoo!lsuc!ncrcan!---\ VOICE: +1 416 323 2623 {mnetor,utgpu}!ontmoh!ontenv!norm ENVOY: N.SOLEY "Mein Hund hat keine Nasse"
denise@cwi.nl (Denise L. Draper) (05/02/88)
In article <1252@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> pegasys@daedalus.UUCP (Pegasystems) writes: > >With regards to the use of A4 paper i'ts not quite what i want to >hand someone nor is it readily available (from what i've seen). > It rather depends on where you live... Denise Draper denise@cwi.nl Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica ...!uunet!mcvax!denise