Printing a Brochure problem

Matt,

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

Open your document, click on the View menu, and make sure you select Hide Comments. For some reason, opening up the Comments pane totally messes up the margins.

-Dennis

Matt,

After I read your post, I printed out the Italian Velo Tours brochure, and it came out perfectly. I notice you're in Virginia. There are known issues with Pages and some HP printers (although I never had any problems with mine). If you have access to an Apple store, you might try taking in your document on a flash drive, then printing it out in the store. That'll give you an idea if it's a printer issue or something else.

Have you made sure that the paper size is set correctly?

-Dennis

I don't know how old your pinter is, but older HP models would not print within .56 inches of the bottom of the page — that is, the edge that comes out last. If that is the problem, the only solution is a new printer.

Walt

iMac Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Which brochure EXACTLY are you having problems with? Is it one of the landscape oriented brochures, ie. Classic or 3-Panel?

-GCL

Check your Borderless options in the Print dialog and make sure the "Amount of Extension" is set to the minimum. This extension or stretching may be what is throwing off your margins. It seems to show up more in documents that have Landscape orientation.

And, Always choose Page Setup before printing.

1. Choose your Printer.
2. Choose your Paper Size; Select US Letter Borderless, or similar, if available.
3. Choose Orientation. If it is in landscape orienation, print both LEFT SIDE (middle icon), and RIGHT SIDE (right icon). One is usually more accurate with margins than the other, but it seems to be a application software/printer combo. So try both.

Now Print.

A. Choose your Printer

Here, the popups under "Presets" is different for every printer driver. But the idea is to choose the same settings as you did in Page Setup.

B. Choose your Paper Size; Select US Letter Borderless, or similar, if available. It may be buried in "Paper Handling" or some other popup.

C. Set the "Amount of extension" or stretching in your borderless option to the minimum. ***

It's a lot to remember. So, save your borderless options as a preset.

Hi. I’m using Pages 2.0 with Mac OS X 10.4.6. Tried to print the Classic Brochure on an HP Deskjet 940C and an HP psc 1210xi. Am having the exact same problem as Matt Y mentioned. The printer is cutting off the right side of the brochure.

I’ve tried everything I know to get this to print correctly, including saving as a PDF. Strangely enough, the right side of the brochure is cut off when I print from PDF as well! First time I’ve seen that happen.

I should mention that the brochure looks perfectly fine in print preview, both in Pages and in the PDF.

I should also mention that the comments were hidden.

I tried scaling the brochure down from 100%, but this just makes all the text in the brochure completely out of alignment and spread out everywhere.

I do not have this option: “Choose your Paper Size; Select US Letter Borderless.” So, I’ve created a custom Print setup using US Letter with 0.00” border left and right. Still cuts off right side of brochure (no change).

Can’t find anything to do with “Set the "Amount of extension" or stretching in your borderless option to the minimum.”

Any other suggestions, help, or patches to fix Pages software, would be appreciated!

I can't say about the HP psc 1210xi, but there's nothing you can do about the 940C, because that's just where the printer margin is. Nothing will make it print beyond that edge in any program. It needs that for paper feeding. I have a 920C that does the same thing.

EDIT You don't see a borderless option in the driver because it's not a borderless printer.

Barbara, THANKS for your FAST reply. I thought that's what might be happening. I appreciate the confirmation. We're going to try one more printer and if that one doesn't work, guess I'll have to scrap this brochure and make one in Word. I've not had any problems creating brochures with Word. Not as pretty as the ones in Pages, but pretty doesn't cut it if I can't distribute them! Oh well......

Thanks again!

Well, you could always modify the design to suit the situation. What I did for years in Appleworks was to print the outside page upside down so that what would be the front panel is printed on the trailing edge where I can get closer to the page edge. You could fix the inside of the Classic brochure by removing the frame from the right hand panel and flipping the page upside down. You'd have to do some rearranging on the outside page, though to make the design work.

I don't know that Word templates are any more generous as far as margins, especially for the front panel, unfortunately.

EDIT the next time you need ink, you might want to think about upgrading to a newer printer. They don't cost much more than a new set of cartridges does, these days.

...guess I'll have to scrap this brochure and make one in Word.

uh, If you're printing to the same printer (HP 940C), it will still not print to the edge of the paper because the printer's minimum printing margins are:

HP 940C Margins / Letter: Left and Right margin (.25 in), Top (.07 in), Bottom (.46 in)

That's one half inch on one side of your paper that you can't print to. Design around it. For instance, make a 8.5 x 10.5 tri-fold brochure - or buy a borderless capable printer. Get honest to goodness professional advice before buying. Note that there are different printing margins based on the paper size you choose.

-GCL

Hi Barbara, you're right. Printers are not expensive these days. It's just a bummer to have a potentially great software program be plagued with such a silly bug as the margin overflow not being taken into consideration. Afterall, Apple prides itself on user friendly drag and drop applications that just work right out of the box. All the silly manipulations and gyrations remind me of using a PC all over again......

Thanks again for your help!

Uh, Geoffery...as I stated before, I have made brochures in Word and printed them on my 940C with no problems. I have been able to print the entire front page of the brochure (made with Word) without anything being cut off. Does this make sense? Of course not....I'm finding not much does with computers.

You did give great advice as far as getting professional advice before buying a printer.

We've come a long way since the Okidata 9 pin Dot Matrix printer, but there are still many incompatibilities to consider before purchase.

Once again, Indigo Moon, this is not a Pages problem. It is the fact that the margin of the printable area on your printer is set that way.

I would guess your word template just doesn't go that far over. Many word templates are old enough to have ben set up when this stupid feeder margin unprintable area was the norm for printers.

Apple really should have made two brochures and labelled them "borderless" and "clueless".