Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 8405
Document Page -> Paper sizes all wrong
Last modified: 2004-01-30 17:40:36 UTC
I'm using Open Office 1.0.1, Writer under windows 2000 and have a LaserJet 1100 I have an A5 document, defined to be A5 portrait in "Format, Page, Page" The difficulty comes in printing, like most (european) printers my printer has A4 portrait. No matter how I adjust the orientation under "File, Printer Settings, Properties", or how I adjust the printer paper size under "File, Printer Settings, Properties, Advanced" or "control panel, printers" the A5 document always appears at the top middle of a portrait A4 page. There is no way to make the A5 document print so that it takes the left half of an A4 landscape page. A sad workaround is to redefine the document page to be A4 landscape with a very wide right margin. Ultimatley I would like to be able to print TWO of my document A5 pages on one printer A4 page (my document is one page long, so I'm not talking about booklet printing). If brochure printing is supposed to do this, well it doesn't work either and suffers from the same problem as I below: I have tried duplicating the one page so my document has two identical pages and then played with "File, Page Preview, Print Options Page View", Format=lanscape, columns=2; but this insists on scaling the number of pages to print to the size of the document page instead of into the size of the printer page, plus it insists on drawing a box around each page which looks bad. 1) Is there any way to map multiple smaller document pages onto larger physical pages (with our without crop marks)? 2) Does OO even take into account the physical page size as obtained from the printer driver taking into account output bin settings, etc; it is possible to get the "believed" paper size as installed on the printer, I know that much. 2) Why does "File, Printer Settings, Properties" seem to be ignored totally? Or is it just a sort of preference to try and choose the right paper bin if possible, and if not the printer driver rotates the image?
pl->ssa: Windows
This seems not to be a Windows-only problem but a problem of how the writer deals with different paper formats between the document and the printer.
The printing works fine when document and printer pages are identical. That's how it supposed to be. Would you use A5 paper in your printer they should be printed correctly. But what you really want is printing two (or more) document pages on one printer page. To do this use the page preview. In the object bar you'll find a button "Print options page view". In the dialog you can setup how many document pages you want to print on one sheet. After that call "Print page view" (not Document/Print!) and you get what you want.
> The printing works fine when document and printer pages are > identical. That's how it supposed to be. Would you use A5 > paper in your printer they should be printed correctly. I don't think it works; how does the printer know I have A4 portrait installed instead of A5 landscape? To prove the point I just stuck some A5 landscape paper in the printer and tried to print an A5 landscape document with the printer set to A5 paper landscape and I only got half the document, it had tried to print the A5 landscape document on A5 portrait. I thankyou for the "Print options page view" to print 2 copies of the A5 page on one A4 portrait page with the edge like I had wanted before. Thits gets me out of a bind but I think the previous paragraph shows thee is still something wrong with regular printing else why does it insist on believing every page in the printer is portrait orientation?
You didn't get me right. I sad it works fine when the paper is identicel to the settings. That includes that your settings of the printer driver fit to to paper you actually put into the printer. What do you expect from the software? How should it detect which sheet you actually put into the printer?
I did get you right, it doesn't work fine when the paper is identicel to the settings as I showed: I set document page to A5 landscape, I set PRINTER PAGE to A5 landscape using the printer settings, I put A5 landscape paper in the printer, and what happens but OO tries to print to A5 portrait and looses half of the page. OO/or-something is ignoring the fact that in printer settings, in the print dialog I told it I had landscape paper, then under advanced, size A5.
>I set document page to A5 landscape, I set PRINTER PAGE to A5 >landscape using the printer settings, I put A5 landscape paper in the >printer, and what happens but OO tries to print to A5 portrait and >looses half of the page. os->samjam: What do you mean with "I put A5 landscape paper in the printer"? The orientation of the paper is not changed (at least in most printers) when the setting is landscape. Usually the paper is put in like portrait although the settings are landscape.
Well! You are right! It seems convention to assume all paper goes through the printer in portrait orientation. I checked a MS office installation, it also ignores the print-dialogs own page orientation controls. Could we make this a feature request then, that we don't ignore the print dialogs page orientation controls, that OO recognises from this that the printer page is landscape and it needs to rotate the printout. I'll let you choose whether to make this "enhancement" or "feature" The "Print options page view" works in the word processor but does not exist for the spreadsheet. Thanks for your advice on this. Sam
Please can OO not ignore the windows print dialogs page orientation controls, have OO recognises from this that the printer page is landscape and it needs to rotate the printout; and please can we have similar funcitonality under unix too.
I said: Please can OO not ignore the windows print dialogs page orientation controls, have OO recognises from this that the printer page is landscape and it needs to rotate the printout; and please can we have similar funcitonality under unix too. I'm basically asking for more print output control to manage paper saving on domestic printers. I know there is a mode in writer only to rotate and print 2 pages in one but it also prints page outlines and leaves extra borders and such.
Good old issuezilla tells me to assign it to the sub-component owner
cp->lho: I have no real stakes in the handling of printing. Is this something where you see a need for improvment ?
cp: seems that I'm too dump to change the owner of a bug
LHO->BH: Please take over.
We have no chance to change it, as OO.o has no influence on the settings of the printer.
Closed.