How to indent printouts for 3-hole punch paper?

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Level 1

131 points

How to indent printouts for 3-hole punch paper?

I need to print about 200 pages from Safari onto paper that will be three-hole punched.

My printer is an HP OfficeJet 7310, nothing special. OS X 10.5.1. When I print letter-size, the left margin is too small. I've tried the custom paper size setup - the Printer Margin settings are completely ignored. If I set the Page Size in the custom paper size window smaller (say, 7.5"x11") the print is narrowed, but the margin increases on the right, not the left.

Ideally I'd like to print this double-sided (keeping the margin appropriate on both sides) but at this point I'm fine printing single-sided if I can get the appropriate margin (which is about 0.75").

Any suggestions?

Posted on Jan 29, 2008 7:21 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 29, 2008 7:37 PM in response to Mitch Cohen

First, print the entire 200 pages to a PDF document. Then, open this PDF file in Preview. Choose Tools > Rotate Left. The click "Document". Repeat this step to effectively rotate all pages 180°. Next, print, scaling at least 90%. This will cause the page to scale down to the bottom left, but when it actually prints, the margin will be on the left, allowing for the three-hole punch.

Note: I would check the scale needed for your particular punching and binding needs.

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Answer 2

Mitch Cohen Author

Level 1

131 points

Jan 29, 2008 9:13 PM in response to Mitch Cohen

I'm going to mark this answered because I found another way to get this done. Firefox added an additional margin to the pages, which was enough of a margin to get things printed and punched (double-sided even!). I'm not sure why Firefox added the margin (in general Safari did a better job printing the pages) but for this I'm not complaining.

It seems Safari completely ignores custom margin sizes. Firefox (and Preview, as I tried Safari->PDF->Preview) does something with custom margins, but not what one would expect. Sort of shoved things around in odd ways, but never giving me a decent left margin.

This is something I'll look into further, as I can see myself needing to print other items for three-hole-punch paper. Perhaps the custom margins are a Leopard bug, or perhaps they work in some non-intuitive manner. But for now I've got my printouts so I'm calling it a night.

Thanks to those who offered suggestions!

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Answer 3

Jan 29, 2008 7:28 PM in response to Mitch Cohen

Go to Page Setup and print it at a reduced size/percentage.

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Answer 4

Mitch Cohen Author

Level 1

131 points

Jan 29, 2008 9:07 PM in response to Templeton Peck

I thought of this (reducing). It doesn't work though; it reduces fine, but everything is pushed to the upper-left. With the left margin unchanged, there's no benefit.

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