Windows Printing Problem, crops.

[effectsguy]

Hi, wondering if anyone has come across this problem...

I created some layouts on my mac, and to print, I scale it 80% and print. All done via button when I want to print)

When I switch to my windows machine and try to print to the same printer, it won't reduce. If I force it to scale to 80%, it takes what would have been printed at 100% (cropped on right and bottom) and shrinks that whole section down to 80% of the paper. It's still missing that 20% of the image. Had it "redrawn" the 20%, it would print normal. Make sense?

I've tried it one 2 different printers. It's Filemaker specific in Windows. I'm using 8.5.2 on Windows and 8.5.1 on Mac.

Thanks for the help!

[Baloo]

We’ve been beating our heads against this problem for over a year. Just to clarify/ re-explain. If a layout would print across 3 pages at 100% you can scale that layout down to 20% in print setup and it will still print across 3 pages but with a scaled (20%) box in the upper left hand corner of each one.

In our case development was done on a PC, and tested against several different networked printers on two different print drivers. A couple of older HP laser jets seem to be the exception (they print correctly), that and printing from a Mac have been our workarounds. Sorry I can’t offer much else beyond “I feel your pain”.

We’ve also run a cross a few printers (sorry I don’t have details as to brands) that will just print gibberish from FMP in Windows. Users are running FMP 8.5v1. Developers are running FMP Adv 8.5v2, Server is 8.0v4

[effectsguy]

Thanks... Sounds like I'm just going to have to make a windows only layout. Oh brother.

[dab]

Eck, we have the same problem since updating from 6 to 8.5.

There is no mention of this issue anywhere (that I can find) in FMP's knowledge base. I did see intructions for setting default print settings for Mac and Windows. The mac settings mention scale, but the Windows version does not. Does this mean they no longer support this in 8.5?

[weststreet]

We were in the process of upgrading from 8.0 to 8.5 on about 35 clients. We encountered the same scaling issues on XP boxes that when running 8.0, could scale, but now can not. Under 8.0, using certain HP printers, you can get scaling to work if you go into the advanced dialog box, and set the "advanced features" selection to "disable". Under 8.5...no dice.

I called FileMaker, and told them the situation with no scaling from the PC, and they said it was not a problem. They said PC's are not meant to scale like a Mac, and that if I could do it under 8.0, that it was a "glitch". (maybe they can put the glitch back, then!!). He said you have to make the layout the size of the paper selected from the driver.

Now you CAN cheat, and (depending on what you've got for a printer/driver) select, lets say legal size as the paper, then select force to fit on letter size, and keep scaling at 100%, and landscape and print. What this does is extends the actual width of you printable area from 11" to 14". Then, when you force it onto letter size, landscape, it will reduce that 14" on screen back to 11" on paper.

Try it, it works. But if you can figure out a way to tell 30+ users they have to print this way without them throwing stuff at you, let me know!!

Maybe a script for exporting to a pdf, then into a printer hotfolder, then flush the pdf....

MW

[Baloo]

They said PC's are not meant to scale like a Mac, and that if I could do it under 8.0, that it was a "glitch".

WTF! If I'm in the mood I can use Excel’s print preview set up dialog box to scale a 500 col X 500 row spreadsheet to one page (or to y pages wide by z pages long), and it will work robustly on every printer in the building. Windows may scale differently than Mac but it does scale and it’s somewhat inconceivable that Filemaker doesn’t feel the need to support it.

[effectsguy]

Apparently the new 9 update has taken care of this issue along with updating your windows print drivers.

[weststreet]

Hi Effectsguy,

I'm still getting the same no-scale issues in 9. What printer and driver combinations are you using in order to make the scaling work?

[aholtzapfel]

We’ve also run a cross a few printers (sorry I don’t have details as to brands) that will just print gibberish from FMP in Windows. Users are running FMP 8.5v1. Developers are running FMP Adv 8.5v2, Server is 8.0v4

I have traced this to a font issue. Printers that print gibberish are using the wrong font. The printer setting is most likely to "Use Device Fonts". If you change this option things will print correctly.

[eswanborg]

They said PC's are not meant to scale like a Mac, and that if I could do it under 8.0, that it was a "glitch".

I can confirm that this "glitch" is new as of v8.5. It does scale correctly on Mac v8.5 and up to PC v8.0. Very frustrating to have to redesign many layouts because FM took this "glitch" out. It used to work perfectly. If any finds a version that does work as we expect, please let me know.

[printdrive]

I confirm that the problem still continue under Filemaker Pro 9v3 on XP boxes. No problems with Filemaker Pro 9v3 on OSX 10.5.2. Does anybody have any suggestion? Please keep pushing on Filemaker to solve the problem, because there were no probs with Filemaker 8. :

[inhouse]

Discovered this problem just yesterday. Cross platform solution running under Server 9 on a dedicated MacG5. As usual, my Mac users work fine. My Windows users (who were on v8 before I recently told them to catch up with my Mac users on 9v3) now can not print correctly. Where does FMP get off suggesting that the lack of this problem in v8 and earlier is the glitch? Only quick work around is to downgrade back to v8. Will have to rebuild layouts just for Windows users if FMP won't fix this (add a bug into into its own code to create the old glitch again?). Feel like I'm working with a Microsoft product.

[FM Maniac]

If you go into layout mode and change the margins to "fixed", then things work just fine on Windows. Even Save Records as PDF uses the print scaling settings.

btw - I believe you must be using a postscript driver for this to work. If your printer doesn't support postscript, you can always add an Apple Laserwriter printer driver that outputs to a file (just to make the "printer" available in FileMaker) and then use the Save as PDF function in FileMaker to get a printable document.

Edited January 7, 2009 by Guest

[eswanborg]

Well the "glitch" that allowed scaling apparently was a worth-while mistake on FMI's part because they've put it back and "broken" it again - YAY. v10 now allows for scaling of prints and PDFs on both Mac and PC.

[red400r]

Hi I'm reasonably new to FM 9, but this sounds very like the Issue I'm having right now with my XP clients running FM 9.0v3, when I try to print.

I'm wondering if you guys could explain to me in a bit more detail how to fix the margins in layout mode? Or even create a custom XP print layout... Or even anything you can suggest as this problem is a real pain! Thanks :

[eswanborg]

I have to update this - as it's not completely fixed. What I discovered today was this:

If you do the page setup Scaling on a Mac, you can watch the page break indicator move from left to right as you adjust the scaling percentage. This is what I consider "normal" behavior (or at least what I expect to see and have been used to seeing) - but this is contrary to FMI's documentation. They try to blame the print driver.

Anyway, if you have access to both platforms, do your page setup and script it from a Mac, where the scaling works. Then when you run that script on PC, it will scale the page as you expect it to. However, if you try to set this scaling on a PC, it will respond just like FMI reports, which is to say, it doesn't scale.

[EDIT] - I may have spoken too soon about it working fully. The script will set the setup to scale, you can even preview it - however it may not be holding the scaling for the actual print...

So the good news is, it is fixable as long as you have access to a Mac.

Edited August 31, 2009 by Guest

[eswanborg]

One more update - I have better info now - the trick is to use drivers that are Post Script not PCL drivers on PC. Same script WORKS with PS driver does not work with PCL. Check that if you're unable to get this to work.