Fix Publisher printing failure

[Br. Giovanni]

I hope the deficiency in Publisher 2003, referred to in the following
exchange of posts, will be remedied promptly. Or is it just a turf war
between Microsoft and HP, conducted at both your customers' expense??

Br. Giovanni

The text of the earlier posts follows:

#1: I am trying to print a brochure with a four-way bleed. I set up for
borderless printing on glossy brochure paper, but the program keeps
defaulting to regular 8.5X11" letter paper and leaving a 3/4" white border.

In 'page setup' under printer properties, I call for 8.5X11" borderless
paper size, borderless printing, HP glossy brochure paper, and best printing
quality. I have also set printer defaults to these settings. Print preview
then shows the brochure as intended, borderless.

Then I go to the File tab and Print, check all borderless settings, and
click on OK. The screen flickers, the print preview goes back to showing the
document cut off by 3/4" on the right side (in landscape), and if I allow
printing to proceed, this border shows up on paper.

When I re-check the page setup, I find that the paper size has been changed
back to letter paper and 'borderless printing' has been unchecked. Yet when I
look at the default printer settings, they are as they're supposed to be.

Complicating things, on a couple of occasions Publisher has printed this
very same brochure properly, without cutting it off. I have tried everything
I know, every way I could find to reset the paper choice, to no avail.

This is driving me NUTS!

The printer is not at fault, by the way. It prints borderless 8.5X11" all
day long from other software, and the problem persists even when the printer
(an HP 5740) and its driver have been uninstalled.

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Br. Giovanni

#2: I have the same problem with my borderless HP printer. I learned a long
time ago to save the publication as an image and use the HP software to print.

Mary Sauer MSFT MVP

#3: I tried this upon your recommendation. Unfortunately, the type comes
through grossly pixellated and the quality of the piece is degraded to the
point of uselessness.

From what you say, I suppose I will have to buy a new printer, or new
software, or -- if my present rage is any indicator -- new both!!

It seems very odd that the leading consumer desktop publishing software will
not work usefully with the leading consumer desktop printer. Bleed-offs are
very common in well-designed brochures and flyers carrying photo art.

Conclusion: Publisher 2003 is only marginally useful with this defect. I
would not recommend the software to anyone trying to produce attractive
marketing materials -- the templates are really not useable.

Br. Giovanni


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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...37-beb305867b38&dg=microsoft.public.publisher

 

[Ed Bennett]

#3: I tried this upon your recommendation. Unfortunately, the type
comes through grossly pixellated and the quality of the piece is
degraded to the point of uselessness.

Did you adjust the quality settings to 300dpi when exporting? Pixellation
when saving at this resolution is beyond the physical limit of your (and my)
printer.

It seems very odd that the leading consumer desktop publishing
software will not work usefully with the leading consumer desktop
printer. Bleed-offs are very common in well-designed brochures and
flyers carrying photo art.

Look at it the other way around.

There is no way Microsoft can make Publisher work here. Publisher will feed
information to the driver, it's the driver's responsibility for making sure
that the data are correctly printed.

I don't have my printer unpacked at the moment to test (I only really use it
at university) - will bleed-offs print correctly from Adobe Reader? If this
is the case, you don't need to go to a raster image file at all - simply
convert to PDF and print from there.

 

[Br. Giovanni]

Mr. Bennett:

Thanks for the PDF suggestion. I am off to buy the conversion software.

Br. Giovanni

 

[Ed Bennett]

Thanks for the PDF suggestion. I am off to buy the conversion
software.

www.primopdf.com has a free converter.

HTH

 

[Pat Furrie]

Look at it the other way around.

There is no way Microsoft can make Publisher work here. Publisher will feed
information to the driver, it's the driver's responsibility for making sure
that the data are correctly printed.

However, if all other programs seem to handle the bordless printing fine
*except* for Publisher, one can make the reasonable conclusion that the
problem is occuring with Publisher, not the printer driver. And this is the
case: other software works fine, only Publisher is having issues.

My guess: Publisher is doing a check on the document to make sure that
nothing falls outside the printable region for the printer, but is getting
confused in certain circumstances, and is resetting the printer settings.
Unfortunately, those "certain circumstances" appear to be more common than
not.

I don't have my printer unpacked at the moment to test (I only really use it
at university) - will bleed-offs print correctly from Adobe Reader? If this
is the case, you don't need to go to a raster image file at all - simply
convert to PDF and print from there.

Well, besides the obvious argument of "why shoud I have to buy some other
third-party software to fix deficiencies in Publisher?," there are other
problems. In my case, the graphics aren't being rendered properly in Acrobat
(version 7). This may be due to the complexity of the layout in Publisher,
but I have set Acrobat to not downsample any of the graphics in any mode, but
there are some things it is just choking on, so that direction doesn't work.
But in the final analysis, I shouldn't have to -- Publisher should be able to
send to the printer with the options I choose and deal with it. It doesn't.
It is supposed to. It is a bug.

Pat Furrie

 

[Chuck Davis]

Pat,

Not a bug. I can print as you state on my Epson Stylus Photo 2400 if I print
on Photo Quality paper. It will not print full bleed on plain paper.

 

[Pat Furrie]

No, it is a bug. First, I'm using an HP D7360 printer, and the point of the
original post had to do with Publisher+HP = problem. Second, the printer is
printing full bleed on plain paper on all other programs, just not Publisher.
What should Publisher care if I'm using plain paper? It is a valid choice
in the printer preference dialogue, and using Paint Shop Pro, I just finished
printing 200 plain paper borderless Xmas cards, no problems. However, that
isn't the program-of-choice for doing a publication layout -- Publisher
should have been. As it was, I saved the pages from Publisher into PNG
format, opened in Paint Shop Pro, and then could print the very same page
borderless.

Pat

 

[John Inzer]

No, it is a bug. First, I'm using an HP D7360 printer, and the point
of the original post had to do with Publisher+HP = problem. Second,
the printer is printing full bleed on plain paper on all other
programs, just not Publisher. What should Publisher care if I'm using
plain paper? It is a valid choice in the printer preference
dialogue, and using Paint Shop Pro, I just finished printing 200
plain paper borderless Xmas cards, no problems. However, that isn't
the program-of-choice for doing a publication layout -- Publisher
should have been. As it was, I saved the pages from Publisher into
PNG format, opened in Paint Shop Pro, and then could print the very
same page borderless.

Pat

========================
Just wondering if you're running
the most recent driver for your
HP Photosmart D7360 Printer...

have a look...
http://tinyurl.com/sk5hz

--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

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