long layout printing problems

[LiveOak]

You might have to detect which machine you are on and use two different print layouts. I have found WYSIWYG to be less than accurate on the PC platform. I've solved this by moving things around until they work. The screen won't accurately reflect how the printed output will appear. I have found WYSIWYG to be especially poor with HP inkjet printers on the PC.

If someone has a better trick, please let us know.

-bd

[kpaul]

I have a layout that is the equivalent to nine 8.5x11 pages. On each page is an Illustrator EPS file that measures 8.5x11 and contains mostly text. Sitting on top of them are fields that get populated by the database at the time of printing.

On a Mac all pages print fine, the EPS and database supplied text all show up as they should. When I perform the same print on a Windows NT machine the database supplied text prints fine but the EPSs disappear on pages 7, 8 and 9. Why?

Also, on a different layout, again 9 pages, I have a long field that crosses the last 4 pages (It holds lots of text). Again, on a Mac, the page breaks are all correct but on a PC it messes them up and even prints some of the text in the headers and footers. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Keith

[kpaul]

Yeah, I've tried moving things around, and even recreated the layout on a PC but nothing seems to work. Even if I put just a small EPS file on the 7th, 8th or 9th page it doesn't print. Is this a bug?

[LiveOak]

That depends upon how you look at it. Since some print drivers work OK, I'd say it isn't a FM problem. Since WYSIWYG is generally much poorer on the PC, part of the responsibility probably goes to Microsoft. If you are using an inkjet printer (you didn't say), some of the print drivers are of very low fidelity with respect to WYSIWYG. Postscript printers are generally fairly good. Does the page layout in a word processor reproduce accurately when using this printer?

-bd

[kpaul]

Interesting. I hadn't considered the print driver. I'm actually not printing directly to a printer but to a PDF. You would think the Adobe driver would be pretty good but when I print to an HP LaserJet all pages print fine. Now I'll have to see if there's an updated Adobe driver. I'm also going to upgrade to Acrobat 5. I'll keep you all posted.

Thanks for the replies.

Keith

[Kittrick]

I have the same problem as well on the PC platform. The WYSIWYG is not even close to what prints out. I had to play with the layout to adjust it to print. It wasn't even close to what it prints out to. I guess I'll just have to live with it as long as all my portals and relationships work (which they do). I've had weird problems as well with lines running to the next page even though on the WYSIWYG editor it showed it as OK....but again I adjusted them to the printout (which was a big waste of paper).

Edward

[Anatoli]

First -- PC is not using WYSIWYG but WYSIWWW. What You See Is What We Want.

But seriously, Macintosh has single Postscript driver so it is not so difficult to do WYSIWYG.

PC on the other hand has hundreds Postscript drivers and thousands non-Postscript ones.

You may ask yourself -- Could that ever work? I have very good WYSIWYG result with some good Postscript printers, but never with something else. Remember also, that PC users will usually say, "WOW, this is printout from database?" even you feel it is not very good one.

[ronpalmer2000]

I corrected the long layout printing problem by choosing 300 dpi resolution instead of the default 600 dpi. good luck.

Lehoni