Why can't I print Landscape?

[Tadjio]

One of the main issues I am having with printing in ASP is in knowing what will come out!

Apart from the ScaleMode fault that I have already reported, I am also having great trouble with Orientation.
I have an HP Photosmart C7280 all-in-one printer with a photo tray for 6x4" (10x15cm) paper.

In simple terms, I am only able to print in Portrait Orientation.
Attempts to use Landscape Orientation fail.

With the actual Printer Orientation, ASP appears to ignore this and just splats out what it sees fit onto a Portrait piece of paper. So I can only use Printer Portrait Orientation.

With the Page Orientation, I find I can only use Page Portrait Orientation as if it is set to Landscape it ignores the Printer Orientation. Also, the other Page Settings for Paper Size and Paper Source appear to only have a fleeting effect on the display and then revert back to defaults. They don't affect the printed output. I find I have to leave the Margin settings all at zero.

I find I cannot rely on the display in the Print Settings dialogue as it often bears no resemblance to the final output sheet. I have already wasted too much paper and ink. PSP is so much easier.

Any comments or suggestions?

[afx]

Use hard codes custom layouts for high volume batch jobs.
For everything else, use a serious printing app like Qimage.

cheers
afx

[Tadjio]

And for not so serious low volume prints?
I normally use PSP for serious stuff but I would like to get to grips with printing in ASP.
On the whole, if I pretend everything is Portrait Mode, it works (but I sometimes forget)!

[afx]

The problem is that AS has some sillyness in calculating margins and fitting images, so it becomes really hard to work with images on the fly vs. fixed layouts that seem to be more reliable.

As graphics printers all want portrait input, and AS can fit a landscape image sideways into a portrait frame I wonder where your problem is...
Apart from presumably a hosed communication between AS and the printer driver.

cheers
afx

[Tadjio]

I am using a Fixed Size Print Layout of 10x15cm.
One Image per page. 1 picture per page.

Print Settings

I have set all my margins to zero in Page Settings.
I now keep the Page Settings Orientation as 'Portrait' and
before I Print I go to Preferences and select Orientation Portrait.

With PSP, both the program and the printer can be set to Landscape Orientations and it works fine.

[afx]

Are you stacking paper in landscape instead of portrait?

cheers
afx

[Tadjio]

Are you stacking paper in landscape instead of portrait?

No. It is always loaded Portrait.

[afx]

Then setting landscape does not make sense at all...

cheers
afx

[Tadjio]

Then setting landscape does not make sense at all...

Oh yes it does!
If the photo I am looking at is 'Landscape' I want to tell ASP and the Printer to print it Landscape
and not have to look at the photo in the Print Preview with my head on its side in Portrait orientation.

I think this is an example of differing expectations coming from Bibble/ASP versus PSP.

I'll work through the scenario using PSP in another post...

[Tadjio]

Here is what I do when I am printing a Landscape photo in PaintShop Pro:-

1) Start the Print process:

Start the Print process

2) Set the Printer Properties to Borderless 10x15cm Landscape Orientation using a preset.

Set the Printer Properties

3) Set the Photo Orientation to Landscape (resulting in an image size of 152x102mm)

Set the Photo Orientation

Press Print and watch the Landscape photo come out of the Portrait printer feeder!

[afx]

Oh yes it does!
If the photo I am looking at is 'Landscape' I want to tell ASP and the Printer to print it Landscape
and not have to look at the photo in the Print Preview with my head on its side in Portrait orientation.

Sorry, but that is on the trivial side of nitpics.
If AS would have an interactive layout editor I might start to see some merit in this, but currently the only purpose of the preview is to roughly check the layout, so messing about with the orientation is really the least important part of the printing support in AS.

cheers
afx

[Tadjio]

If the photo I am looking at is 'Landscape' I want to tell ASP and the Printer to print it Landscape
and not have to look at the photo in the Print Preview with my head on its side in Portrait orientation.

Sorry, but that is on the trivial side of nitpics.
If AS would have an interactive layout editor I might start to see some merit in this, but currently the only purpose of the preview is to roughly check the layout, so messing about with the orientation is really the least important part of the printing support in AS.

If you don't use ASP for printing, you probably don't appreciate what I am on about!
My point is my first line:
"If the photo I am looking at is 'Landscape' I want to tell ASP and the Printer to print it Landscape"
This is impossible to achieve with ASP but is trivial with PSP.

[afx]

If you don't use ASP for printing, you probably don't appreciate what I am on about!

Hmm, Me thinks that sentence needs rewording ;-.)

My point is my first line:
"If the photo I am looking at is 'Landscape' I want to tell ASP and the Printer to print it Landscape"
This is impossible to achieve with ASP but is trivial with PSP.

So what? You get a landscape preview for a landscape image that is printed rotated to portrait on the printer.
Do you think a team that is totally resource constraint (I wonder when Corel will finally take care of that) will bother with such trivialities while there are much bigger problems in the print subsystem?

cheers
afx

[Tadjio]

If you don't use ASP for printing, you probably don't appreciate what I am on about!

Hmm, Me thinks that sentence needs rewording ;-.)

Hmm, methinks you missed the first 'if' :->

My point is my first line:
"If the photo I am looking at is 'Landscape' I want to tell ASP and the Printer to print it Landscape"
This is impossible to achieve with ASP but is trivial with PSP.

So what? You get a landscape preview for a landscape image that is printed rotated to portrait on the printer.

NO. I get a portrait preview of a landscape image that I have to then tell my printer is portrait rather than landscape which is really daft.

Do you think a team that is totally resource constraint (I wonder when Corel will finally take care of that) will bother with such trivialities while there are much bigger problems in the print subsystem?

Pray tell me what the much bigger problems are...

[afx]

If you don't use ASP for printing, you probably don't appreciate what I am on about!

Hmm, Me thinks that sentence needs rewording ;-.)

Hmm, methinks you missed the first 'if' :->

No.
Why should I appreciate something that according to you is missing in AS?
To make sense, the sentence would need to be something like
"If you don't use PSP for printing, you probably don't appreciate what I am on about!"

And again, other software that I use can do this, but I tend to ignore it as it is not essential for the function. Even more so in case of printing small 10x15 proofs.

Pray tell me what the much bigger problems are...

I already mentioned the broken layout functions ....
Unless you hard code a layout, it is rather tough to use a paper for multiple images efficiently or use an exact paper size fully without borders or cut off parts.
Then of course there is the lack of sharpening control and the missing softproof in the preview window,

cheers
afx