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Printer margins way off in OS X

jamdr

jamdr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
I have been having this problem with my printer ever since I upgraded to OS X a few years ago. Whenever I print out a document (with 1 inch margins on all sides), the text will be printed at the very top, leaving a large white space at the bottom, effectively giving my document a 0.5 inch margin at the top and a 1.5 inch margin at the bottom. This happens in every program, with different versions of OS X, on different computers, and with different printers. This happened on my old Epson 740 and my hp 6120 (a pretty decent printer). I have tried everything, including installing the newest drivers, reinstalling the OS. This never happened under OS 9, and doesn't seem to happen with other people's printers. Has anyone else experienced this problem?
 
Re: Printer margins way off in OS X

Originally posted by jamdr
I have been having this problem with my printer ever since I upgraded to OS X a few years ago. Whenever I print out a document (with 1 inch margins on all sides), the text will be printed at the very top, leaving a large white space at the bottom, effectively giving my document a 0.5 inch margin at the top and a 1.5 inch margin at the bottom. This happens in every program, with different versions of OS X, on different computers, and with different printers. This happened on my old Epson 740 and my hp 6120 (a pretty decent printer). I have tried everything, including installing the newest drivers, reinstalling the OS. This never happened under OS 9, and doesn't seem to happen with other people's printers. Has anyone else experienced this problem?
Click to expand...

I have the problem on an HP 940c. Haven't looked into it too much, simply because I print out most stuff that the margins matter on at work.
 
printing in OS X is a right pain, i hate it. why is it so damn difficult???? and why hasn't it been fixed yet?
 
So other people have this same problem? Is it really a problem with OS X? I find it strange, because a buddy's new HP works fine with his iBook, but my HP does not work with my PowerMac. Shouldn't Apple have fixed this by now, since we are on OS 10.3. Is this a very widespread problem, or am I just unlucky? Maybe I will call Apple customer service, although they would probably just tell me it's my printer...
 
The best you can do is write to them on the OS X feedback page and tell them to fix thier printing.
To tell the truth though, its not necessarily a problem with OS X per se, but the apps that run on OSX. Just as an example, print with MS Word and set your margins, they work, set custom margins in Text edit, and thier not used. Just compare the prior version of safari's horrendous printing and compare it with Omniweb, omniweb is so nice! So its really applications that don't take advantage of whats there are the problem - including apples own apps, that and HP's drivers are junk. I personally find the open source Gimp-Print drivers waaaaay better, faster, and more reliable. Go figure...
 
The OSX 10.3.3 beta seed notes have hinted at improved margins when printing. Try waiting out for that when it's released.

/ek
 
I have had printing problems from 10.0 on.
I also have an HP printer that is impossible to get a centered image on. Even if you go into Photoshop and move the image the printer simply clips the image to the incorect margins anyway.
I know of two other people with the same problem. I have e-mailed and talked to both HP and Apple. As usual each one points a finger at the other and leaves the end users with no resolution to the problem, except of course to buy a new printer.
Has any one with a Canon printer experianced this problem? I really like their photo printers and will be replacing the HP soon. 🙁
 
I would sure like to be able to take advantage of my Epson SP820's ability to print borderless photos, but I can't seem to do it in OS X. Worked fine in OS 9.
 
This is rather ridiculous. OS X has been out for a number of years, yet this problem hasn't been fixed. I'm not surprised that the printer companies and Apple are pointing the finger at each other. I think that the true reason probably lies in HP not properly using the printing technologies that are available in OS X, instead relying on old OS 9 code. Apple could probably fix the problem if they wanted to, but would rather HP be the one to spend the extra money. The strange thing is that some HP printers work fine, like a friend's 5650. I don't really want to buy another printer, though, since I only recently bought the 6120.

I don't really know what do do, but this is just another reason that I've become more and more disillusioned with Apple. I don't want to turn this into another rant (I already have enough of those), but we pay a premium for Apple products, and the reason I do it is because I'm used to things that JUST WORK. No messing around or wasted time or long phone calls with tech support. And things used to be exactly like this. My old PowerMac 6400 was a great, fast, reliable machine. Never had a single problem with it. Why can't things be like this again in the Apple world? Isn't it pathetic that I can't even print? That is one of the most basic tasks that makes a computer useful, and my Mac can't do it. I have to print all of my documents from a PC (with the same printer, by the way). I'm thinking more of switching all the way over to Windows every week.

I will see what happens with 10.3.3, but each time an OS update is released, I try to print again, and so far I've been disappointed. I don't really expect any change now.
 
Originally posted by jamdr
I will see what happens with 10.3.3, but each time an OS update is released, I try to print again, and so far I've been disappointed. I don't really expect any change now.
Click to expand...

Believe it or not, computers are still and art form rather than an exact science, especially when there's multiple vendors involved.

Who knows, this may be a case of vendor drivers misinterpreting the CUPS (printing subsystem) of OSX, and it's not Apple's fault. Or it could be Apple's configuration of CUPS.

Either way, I'm reserving judgement on this until after it's fixed and can compare notes. It's not exactly ruining my life.

/dale
 
Originally posted by jamdr
This is rather ridiculous. OS X has been out for a number of years, yet this problem hasn't been fixed. I'm not surprised that the printer companies and Apple are pointing the finger at each other. I think that the true reason probably lies in HP not properly using the printing technologies that are available in OS X, instead relying on old OS 9 code. Apple could probably fix the problem if they wanted to, but would rather HP be the one to spend the extra money. The strange thing is that some HP printers work fine, like a friend's 5650. I don't really want to buy another printer, though, since I only recently bought the 6120.
Click to expand...
Well, again, these printing companies have no excuse. There are tons and tons of knowledge collectively covering the CUPS printing system, its not like apple is using some bizzaro printing subsystem that developers are being strangled into writing for....Its all open source!! Plus, if they want to get better drivers for free, they'll open source thier drivers and let us folks who can do a better job for free than thier payed "engineers." Anyways, I suggest you take a look at gimp print drivers and linuxprinting.org and see if there are some open source drivers for your printer, they'll 90 percent be better than what HP offers...
 
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