Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 4989
Printing to large format printers
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:12:27 UTC
Hi, I'm trying to print a large poster to an HP Design Jet printer. When I select the printer setting I tell it to print either E-size or custom 36"x50" (for which roll stock is loaded. But, when I go to the page size settings I do not see the page sizes that the printer is capable of. It lets me configure a custom size page that meets the paper size. But I can't print to it that size, it says I must trim, scale or posterize. It seems to me there are some missing functions: 1. If I select a printer that has certain paper sizes avaible I should be able to pick those sizes when I do page setup. 2. If I page set up to a particular page size it should select that paper size from the printer. And if the paper is not loaded it should tell me (actually that maybe an os function?). 3. It should let me print a page size that printer supports.
I just noticed that the maximum page size is limited to 47.24" in either direction. This limitation should be eliminated considering the wide avaliability of large format ink jet printers (every department in our building has atleast one 36" wide per group). There are larger than we have as well.
Reassigned to Wolfram.
Reassigned to Thorsten.
As I have no such printer available, I cannot truly reproduce this bug. The independence of the page format and the printer's page was intended, for somewhat fuzzy reasons. Generally, the page format in the Draw application was more or less used to provide the user with an impression on where the visible output lies. You can put stuff all over the place, it's not limited to the page shown. The "shrink to fit" dialog only comes up if the page format set is truly smaller than the printer's page size, so I suspect that your printer might subtract some non-printable border from the nominal size. Finally, the limitation to "A0" paper size is AFAIK due to limited internal precision. I hope this will change for 2.0, so I accept the bug for this target.
I have access to several different large format printers so I can test it for you. One work around to part of the problem for page size is to use impress and import from powerpoint. If I make a very large sheet in powerpoint OOo opens it and keeps the large page size. Still can't print though. Thanks!
What do you mean by "can't print"? Still the "shrink to fit" dialog popping up? To elaborate on that precision issue: we can surely _represent_ more than A0 coordinates internally. But for working with the document, several times the output precision is required, a simple example is when you move objects partially off the visible page. For PowerPoint import, we seem to favor the the document's setting over our internal limits, YMMV when actually working with such a document.
OK, I just tryied 1.1Beta and it now let's me print and doesn't say I have to scale! I just printed a 56"x24" storyboard on an HP DesignJet 1055CM and it came out good. I had to manually set the paper size on the printer setup. I can't actually tell the paper size in OOo when I change the page size it maxs out at 46.85x34" and if I hit ok it rescales. Seems that the minimal fix left would be to allow for larger pages (this print can do much longer than 56"). The second priority item would be the linking of the page size to the printer such that the printer will know the size paper I have set.
See also issue 13461.
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"According to the OpenOffice.org roadmap (http://tools.openoffice.org/releases) this issue was retargeted to OOo Later."
Perhaps this can be handled together with issue 4219?
@regina: yep, issue 4219 will surely solve the limit in page size. That would leave linking initial printer page format selection to document page size, right?
Reset to default bug assignee.