Misalignment of fields when printing

[comment]

I have seen this. Not in Filemaker specifically, but the same principle. Granted, the differences won't be as dramatic when only the printer driver is different as they will be with two versions of the same font. But I'd be surprised to see a Postscript printer put the text EXACTLY in the same space as an inkjet.

[LaRetta]

I may be skewing my experience because I have always created the document and printed on the same machines. Testing here, all of our printers are laser (Xerox workcenter 5655, Xerox workcenter pro C3545, HP 4600 dn and HP 4250n; the other two are duplicates of these). All print the same. I am not sure inkjet would be required for testing because both the Dell P1500 and P1600 are also lasers but I am not discounting this portion of my tests at all. Simply, I have no inkjets to test right now. I have no idea what my home system is - it is multifunction scanner, fax, copier etc; fairly cheap color thingy. But it too displayed (on my home Dell) and printed properly and matched my results with these lasers.

When I open this last file, the fields are way off (when viewing in browse). I move them to align them (in browse) and they are fine - preview, print and pdf to each of our printers and from all three of my boxes. I would ask, tking, when you select the large text box and then select font, what does it show? If a font isn't installed, I believe that FM chooses the closest font it can. Arial is standard in Windows systems. I only have one Arial installed in FM.

Michael, I created a test layout as you've suggested and it prints fine but they are all lasers. I am unsure what other tests I can perform. I wish other people with windows systems would jump in and help us here. This is something I think is important to understand thoroughly because I do not want to ever create a solution based upon something which would break if it was used on a different system. The only time I have had things not line up is: 1) when viewed on a Mac or 2) when the font the text is based upon isn't in the other system and FM has to substitute. But I am using a brand new computer. And even on my laptop and Interfaces box, it shows that text block is Arial.

I'm not done. I simply won't give up until I understand it. Good grief ... now I'm off on tangent studying fonts; differences between Type1 and Type 3 and the history of Adobe keeping Type1 to itself and ... YAY! Bottom line - I have no answers right now and nothing else I can share. If I discover something interesting I will post it.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Guest

[tking]

OK, maybe we are getting somewhere. The text was created and or pasted into Filemaker but I needed to use an 11 point font which is not in the menu selection. I therefore used the font size up/down button to select 10 point and then moved it up one notch to get 11. Maybe the size not showing up is what is causing a rendering problem. I am surprised that you open the file I sent and see the fields misaligned. My system shows them in perfect alignment,. This leads me to believe there could be a screen font issue. Iven checked my screen settings. It is set for True Color 1024 X 768 but I don't think that matters.

[tking]

No good there either. I just selected all text, changed to a menu size of 12 point, realigned fields and printed. Screwed up as ever!

[LaRetta]

I think that true type fonts can adjust easily up or down by a point so I'm not sure that makes a difference (I've always been able to specify custom and 11 point and it's always worked fine for me). And I too tried changing my resolution to 800x(something). But the fields still lined up perfectly with the text.

What happens if you select all of the text and re-specify it to Arial 11 point?

[LaRetta]

To help us figure this out, I need for you to specifically answer questions asked. Do you have Arial in your fonts list and is that what it shows when you select the text block?

[LaRetta]

We are overlapping in posts. I'll slow down a bit. :blush2:

[tking]

Sorry, our internet was just down for about 3 hours. To answer your questions, I do have Arial in my list and I have selected all text to specify font and size.

[comment]

I would suggest making this simple test:

Open the attached file.

Go to layout mode.

Select US letter as the page size.

Align the lines precisely with the "_" and "|" characters in the text (as shown in the picture).

Print the file (perhaps select US letter again).

Archive.zip

[tking]

I did the printout just as you asked. Aligned both the horizontal and vertical line on both samples. Selected letter from the print set up before aligning and from the properties tab once I went to print mode.

Top sample:

Vertical line printed a hair to the right like your sample.

Horizontal line printed about 1/4" too low.

Bottom sample:

Vertical line printed about 1/4" to the right

Horizontal line printed slightly above where it was lined up (1/64"?)

[comment]

Surely it's the other way round? The lines stayed put, but the text took up more/less space? If you're not sure, put a 1" grid of lines behind the text.

[tking]

That was very interesting! You are right, the text changed. Using a 1" grid this is what I found.

Top text box:

Top of the text is where it should be. The las line of text has shrunk upward.

The left edge of text is where it should be but the right edge has shrunk up and isn't quite as far right as it should be.

Bottom Text box.

Top and left side s of text where they should be bottom has shrunk actually grown slightly larger than it should be and the right edge has shrunk more than the text in the upper box.

[comment]

OK, then. If anyone can explain this other than the font used for printing being different from the font used for on-screen rendering, I'd be interested in hearing the explanation.

BTW, you should repeat the same test in another application, say Word, to confirm it's a system-wide issue.

[tking]

I think you make a good point. furthermore, I ran another test using a JPG and putting a few fields over top of it. They held their postion just fine. Unfortunately, if you have to create a JPG out of your text fields in order to keep evrything aligned in a document, you have created a much larger file.

[comment]

Well, the real solution is to merge the fields in the block of boiler-plate text, as mentioned before.

BTW, JPG is not the best format for pictures of text - PNG or GIF should work much better, and if you reduce the colors to a few shades of grey, they won't be that large either.