Adjusting print margins?

*OK, I may have your answer!!!! This is a problem I've been having as well. Like to drive me nuts.*

But I just successfully printed an item that was printing 3cm on the leading edge and on the left and right but not on the trailing edge. There it was 1/2 inch.

SO, here's what I did, step by step.

1) In the program (mine was Pages) go to FILE menu and then Page Set Up.
2) In the FORMAT FOR box I chose my printer (mine is HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 Premier).
3) In the PAPER SIZE box I chose Custom Sizes all the way at the bottom.
4) Then I selected the + button. It creates a new page called untitled. I clicked on the name and changed it to something I wanted other than untitled.
5) Then I chose in the Printers Margin box - The printer stated above.
6) In Paper Size I chose 8.5 for width and 11.4 for Height
7) Then you can move it around with the Left Top Bottom and Right boxes. I happen to set mine for ...Left .13 Top .12 Bottom .13 and Right .13

AND Walllla. It is working.

Wishing you the best and less frustration

Hello Zapp and welcome to the Apple forums.

Are you trying to print without a border? If so, then with the Canon driver you can select A4 Borderless in Page Setup (or the Print dialog for some apps like Preview) and then using the Borderless menu, adjust the amount of creep into the default margin.

If this is not your issue, then maybe you can provide some more information about the application/s you are using.

PaHu

Also found the following regarding Page Setup > Margins, which is from the Apple Developer document "Mac OS X Printing System Overview".

The default formatting printer, Any Printer, provides standard paper sizes with margins set to ensure
that the imageable area for each paper size is well within the area to which most printers can print.
Any Printer is the best choice as the formatting printer for a document that may be printed to different printers.

A specific printer should be chosen as the formatting printer only when the document must use the
imageable area defined by a specific printer or to select sheet sizes that are not available for the default Any Printer. For example, choosing a specific printer is necessary when a document must be printed to a printer that prints to the edge of a sheet or to a custom paper size.

If the user changes the formatting printer, the printing system attempts to match the paper size shown in the Paper Size menu to a paper size provided by the newly chosen formatting printer using these rules:
■ The printing system looks for a matching paper size. For example, if US Letter is shown in the
pop-up menu, the printing system looks for paper sizes of 8.5 by 11 inches.
■ If there is more than one matching paper size, the printing system chooses the matching paper
size whose page rectangle matches most closely.
■ If there are no matching paper sizes, the printing system adds the current paper size to the Paper
Size pop-up menu as an item named Other.

Well there appears to be a limitation with TextEdit. I am able to change the margins from the default 3cm to 1cm in Word via Page Setup and print this close to the edge.

However, with TextEdit, even after creating a custom paper size with 0.5cm left & right margin via the Page Setup menu, the text still displays and prints with a 2.5cm (1 inch) margin.

So it appears to be more of an application function rather than the a core printing system (CUPS) restriction.

Need to do some more reading of the developer guides and get back to you. However, I think you may not have too much ability to change the current symptom.

PaHu

I'm reading your discussion, having arrived here looking for a solution to the same problem - how to change Textedit's top margin default of 1" (or is it 2.7cm?). Any further follow-up? Or do we accept that the top margin of a Textedit document cannot be changed?

I am in the same position. I am trying to print address labels onto a 100mm x 62mm shipping label using a Brother QL-650. The printer needs a margin of 1.5 mm on the long side and 3 mm on the short side. The printer comes with a program (P-Touch) that can print right up to these borders, but when I try to print an address label (from safari) there is always an extra 7mm border at the top (so 10mm) and a 15mm border at the bottom, which knocks 22mm of printable space of the label.

I have spent 3 days messing with CSS, php, printer settings, and any other levers I can get my hands on, and nothin' Zip. Can't even cut and paste into the labelling software because it prints the HTML. Hate it.

I have tried Pages and TextEdit and they also have the insane margins. Perhaps Apple has hired an ex-Microsoft person to do this, who is trying to helpfully guess what we want then hard-wire it in. For our convenience, of course.

Perhaps Snow Leopard is better - but I don't have time to deal with all the things it will break.

I hate computers. Hate 'em. Should have been a plumber like my daddy said. I would be at the bowling alley by now, with the Porsche parked outside, and the blonde floozy with a voice that cuts glass bringing me drinks and filing her nails. "And," the Daddy always liked to point out, "ya can't outsource plumbing to Bangalore." **** right.

Hi folks:

I just thought I'd chime in here for those pulling their hair out with this same issue. Honestly, this is really the only goof-ball thing I have ever seen an Apple application do (having such a restriction on a flexible preference.)

Anyway, as inelegant as this is, it does work:

1. Create a New document in ANOTHER text application (like Word.)
2. Set your margins to what you want (I put mine at '0' all the way around to give myself as much flexibility as I ever will need)
3. SAVE the new document as a RTF (RICH TEXT FILE) FORMAT

Now you can use that as your Template and open that with TextEdit and your margins will be edge to edge of the paper and you can set your tabs and margins wherever you want.

It's the only workaround I could find that works.

Hope this helps!

Okay. I will check this tomorrow. I'm sure I have had success getting TextEdit to print closer to the margins than the default by adjusting the borderless slider to Max.

PaHu