Can't print a legal size page on 8.5" x 11" paper

Question

Level 1

36 points

Can't print a legal size page on 8.5" x 11" paper

I'm trying to take a legal page and print it on letter size paper. I went to the "Paper Handling" options in the print options and changed the "Destination Paper Size" to "US Letter" and checked the "Scale to fit paper size" box. But it just prints the top 11" of the legal size page (the bottom 3" doesn't print at all) and doesn't try to scale anything down.

I have an HP Photosmart 2610 All In One printer. What am I doing wrong or need to do to get this to work? I can't imagine not being able to do this. Thanks in advance for your help.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Jul 3, 2008 10:27 PM

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Answer 1

Courcoul

Level 6

18,684 points

Jul 3, 2008 11:25 PM in response to eddieb3

From what application are you trying to print your legal-sized document? MS Word? iWork Pages? OpenOffice? At least with the first two, you can go to Page Setup and scale it down, say, to 79%. That would fit the vertical side (14 in) into the letter sized paper (11 in).

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Answer 2

eddieb3 Author

Level 1

36 points

Jul 4, 2008 9:34 AM in response to Courcoul

I'm printing a pdf file using Preview. But your mention of what application I was using got me thinking and I tried using Adobe to print the pdf instead of Preview. The scaling features in Adobe work and I am able to print the legal size pdf page on letter paper.

I'd rather be able to handle this in Preview, but it's not that big of a deal to use Adobe when I need to print legal size on letter paper. Thanks!

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Answer 3

Jul 4, 2008 2:01 PM in response to eddieb3

Eddie, I'm having the same problem with my Deskjet 5740. In Preview, "fit to page" doesn't work, but entering a scaling % does. I'm curious to know: in the Adobe app, were you able to use the "fit to page" checkbox?

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Answer 4

eddieb3 Author

Level 1

36 points

Jul 5, 2008 2:31 PM in response to cricket484

Yeah, the Fit to Page option works for me in Adobe and I'm therefore able to print the legal page on letter size paper.

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Answer 5

Jul 6, 2008 11:02 AM in response to eddieb3

Thanks for the tip. Using the latest Adobe Reader, Fit to Page also worked for me to reduce A4 & legal to 8.5" x 11" on the Deskjet 5740.

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