windows printing snafu...incorrect margins on printouts and previews

[chadroeder]

Hi. Whenever I go to print something, whether through the printer wizard or a separate program, the "framing" of the document or picture is off...instead of a nice 1/4" border, the "printable area" window (ie, print preview) is misplaced, so that I have maybe 1/8" at the top, and 1/2" at the bottom. It prints the images this way as well. So, basically, it's not printing the image "centered" on the page, as it should, but "shifted"...This is the case with two separate printers, two different drivers...and it does it whether printing from a webpage or printing a photo, so I'm pretty sure it must be windows that's causing it...I've reinstalled the drivers for the printer, to no avail. Using XP pro.

 

[xkjdhdg]

This is controlled by your printer properties in the settings for the printers. Go to Settings Printers and check out what your property settings are.

 

[dcowboysr1]

Also make sure that the printer driver is up to date.

 

[linney]

XP has drivers for most printers preloaded. The problem maybe that these drivers are pretty basic and don't handle the job as well as the updated XP drivers supplied by the printer manufacturer.

 

[chadroeder]

mrfixit (TechnicalUser) Mar 29, 2004
"This is controlled by your printer properties in the settings for the printers. Go to Settings Printers and check out what your property settings are."

This doesn't help. Thanks anyway.

Drivers are up to date. This problem has happened with 2 separate drivers on 2 separate printers. Everything is as it should be. There are no driver conflicts, as far as I can tell.

 

[linney]

Try the Print Manufacturer Support Site for help. Use terms like "Print Margins", "Print Preview" or "incorrect margins on printouts and previews" and search in the Help and Support program while online, it will throw up several oddities involving several printers.


For example ( and there are others you can check out),

817042 - PRB: The PrintDocument Object Prints a Graphical Object with Incorrect Margins

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817042&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Try the same search terms at Google. If you want further help from this forum let us know what make of printers we are talking about.

 

[bcastner]

I know this is very low-tech, but I have had several calls about this issue.

1. Certain softwares will use Word if installed to render a page. Make sure that Normal.dot has the "right" settings for top, bottom, left and right margins. It is best when installing a printer to set these all to 0 (zero) and let Word fill-in the acceptable limits for each defined printer.

Examples where Word is used to render for print: any HTML page in IE or OE, if Word is installed.

2. People who change irregularly paper sizes, often forget the basics of the paper guides for the printer. The left and right guides need to be exactly set as marked on the printer body. I would say 90% of the calls I have ever received about paper registration issues in Windows were the fact that the paper guides were not correctly set at the point the paper is fed to the printer.

3. This is almost never a software issue. It is a physical paper delivery issue. Particularly for those who change paper size and form factor frequently.

 

[chadroeder]

Word is not being used to render for print. The paper size has never been set differently (always 8.5 x 11)...I think I'll try uninstalling some software to see if that helps. Thanks for all your posts.