Newbie questions about formatting graphics onto page

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tmt53

Hi everyone,

I'm rather new to this. I was wondering if someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong. I want this barcode graphic formatted at the bottom of the page with a page number (barcode.jpg). When I do a page preview, it looks good. No problem. When I actually print the document, there's a gap (presumably a margin? I've tried playing around with it, but can't find how to make it better...see barcode1.jpg). I want the barcode to be at the very bottom of the page without a gap. I've read stuff on bleeds/margins, and I think I'm just confusing myself, so I thought I'd try here.

Thanks for all your help.

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utnik

hi tmt53

how did you generate this .jpg files?

       
  • with 'file' → 'export' → 'save as image' it works (at least on my system...)
  • by printing via a document writer you may get random results
  • when you generate a .pdf file (the standard procedure) it depends on the export adyustments...
i would place extend the barcode to the limit of the bleed area (perhaps extending it a little bit) and export the page as .pdf (for printing on the own office printer without the bleeds – but mine wont print to the edges, for professional printing with the settings of my print shop...)

utnik

tmt53

I should clarify that I don't intend to export to .jpg for the final document, it was just so you could see my examples.

I want to export to .pdf. It's going to be a user guide (downloadable from the internet), so people can print them out on their home printers. Will there always be an inconsistency between .pdf and printing? Or is there some way to close that gap margin?

GarryP

Personally I would avoid putting anything near the edge of a page if you have no way of knowing whether the printer being used can print to the edge of the page.

My last personal printer could go near the edge (8mm gap all round if I remember right), and some can cover the whole sheet, but my current very cheap printer can't print anything in the bottom 20mm or so of the page. (I presume it's a cheap hardware issue.) My point is that you have no way of knowing how people are printing it out so I would advise that you should allow some leeway for hardware limitations in this kind of situation.

I know you can tell the various drivers and bits of software to squash the print into the physically printable space but this could cause problems with any fine-tuning you've done with layout etc.

Also, you don't know if the person doing the printing knows how to use the printer software. They could just use some default setting that prints stuff "as is" without any scaling to fit. If you put anything important where the printer can't print, your reader might not even know it should have been there (especially if they just download and print without reading it first).

I hope this helps.

Garry.

Nermander

I think 98% of all users of a PDF reader have the scaling option set to "Fit to page size" or "Shrink oversize pages". This means that users printing the file will NOT have it printed to the edge (especially since most printers don't support printing to the edge).

GarryP

I think we're on the same wavelength here but coming from two slightly different angles so I'll try and be more precise about what I meant.

My intention was to warn people that:
(a) some printers can't print on the whole physical page (as already mentioned by utnik), and also,
(b) any use of a "shrink/fit" option could ruin the original intent regarding the aesthetic positioning of something on the page in respect to the physical medium (tmt53 didn't want a gap at the bottom of the page).

Specific positioning of something on a PDF page doesn't mean that it will, or can, be actually physically printed in that specific position on the paper (or whatever you're printing onto).

In other words, as you can't know for sure how people will print something, you shouldn't make assumptions about their hardware/software limitations or configurations. If you can't control the printing mechanism you shouldn't expect to know what the result will be in all cases.

Anyway, I hope I've made myself clearer for people reading this and apologise for any confusion caused.

Nermander

But it's whole different issue if you are going to print with offset printing or similar, where things are printed to scale and then trimmed.

GarryP

That's a very good point and well made.

I was concentrating on "normal" home/office printers as they were what tmt53's readers would be using but other processes do have their own considerations.

Personally I don't know much about offset printing so I would be interested in reading something (preferably in relation to working with Scribus) about different printing methods and what should be taken into consideration for each.

Would you, or someone else, be able point me to a good web article, or even better write a Scribus wiki article, comparing different printing methods and what the differences mean for the people putting documents together?

I'd certainly get something from learning more about this and I'm sure others would too.

a.l.e

if you want random users to correctly print your document, you'd better keep a 1cm margin.
if the paper formatting is correctly set it should print on correctly on every modern printer.
(well in garryP's case i suspect a A4/US letter mismatch...)

and, indeed, most people will have the "shrink to printer margins" option on: so make sure that parts that are to be automatically read (like a barcode) can still be read after the worst possible resizing.

ciao
a.l.e