Can't center image on HP 1115

[larrysimon]

I'm trying to print an 8X10 image on 8.5X11 paper landscape. The center image box on the print preview page is checked and Elements generates an offset from left of .235 inches which is too small. How do I fix this?

Thanks for your help

[larrysimon]

I'm trying to print an 8X10 image on 8.5X11 paper in landscape. The center image box on the print preview page is checked and Elements generates an offset from left of .235 inches - which is too small. The image comes out much closer to the left edge of the paper than the right. I know I can manually slide it to the right a bit but would like the program to do this correctly so I don't have to fiddle with it every time. How do I fix this?

Thanks for your help

[Beth Haney]

Well, Larry, you do what others of us HP owners do (I have a 1215) - you run some test sheets and note what kinds of manual corrections you have to make to the top and left margin in order to get a large print centered on the page. I know that's not what you wanted to hear! :)

To set up the various margin adjustments on mine, I opened up new Elements docs of the sizes I wanted to center (8 X 10, 8 X 10 1/2, 7 1/2 X 10, etc.) I did a Select>All, got the marching ants, and then I did a Stroke of about 25 pixels. Then I printed on plain paper, making adjustments until I got each centered. When I got a good one, I noted the adjustments for left and top, wrote it on the page along with the size, and put it in the Elements notebook.

HPs are the worst among all the printers for failing to center. There's another recent thread in which this is discussed, and it seems that the HP drivers and Elements have some kind of communication problem. Epsons seem to be the most likely to center properly (most do and only a few don't) and Canons are unpredictable. Several of us have been complaining about this for quite a while. Adobe says it's an HP issue, and HP says it's an Adobe issue. It's a standoff, and us HP owners are left up a crik!

[larrysimon]

Thanks Beth. You're right, its not what I was hoping to here but it does seem like a good way to get a fix on it.

[Peter Duniho]

"Beth Haney" <member@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:2ccd37b1.0@webx.la2eafNXanI...

> HPs are the worst among all the printers for failing to center.
> There's another recent thread in which this is discussed, and
> it seems that the HP drivers and Elements have some kind of
> communication problem. Epsons seem to be the most likely
> to center properly (most do and only a few don't) and Canons
> are unpredictable.

As I mentioned in the other thread, ink jet printers almost always require a
little extra effort to center images on the page, because of the asymmetric
printable area.

Just for grins, I downloaded the HP printer driver for the 1115 and 1215
printers. I verified that, indeed, the HP 1115 and 1215 do not have
symmetric printable areas. They can only print within 1/4" of the left and
right sides of the paper, 1/16" of the top, and just under 1/2" from the
bottom.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the HP printer driver does NOT have a
setting to enable centered printing, the way that the Epson drivers do.

My guess, without being there to actually see what's going on, is that the
centering is only unpredictable when one isn't aware of the issues regarding
printable area on ink jet printers. I do not believe that there are any
"communication problems" going on with respect to this issue.

In Elements, you can see the "entire page vs printable area" difference in
the Preview dialog. Where the print preview is shown on the left, there is
an outermost border. This outermost border represents the piece of paper.
There is also an area of white inside that outermost border, on which the
image being printed is shown. This area of white is the printable area, and
you'll notice on the HP printers (and other ink jet printers using their
default settings) that it is not centered within the outermost border.

The easiest way to center an image on the HP printers that I can think of is
to make sure that the "Show Bounding Box" checkbox is checked, that the
"Center" checkbox is NOT checked, and then grab the image and center it
between the edges of the *outermost border* (NOT the white area). You'll of
course have to make sure that the image is printing small enough to still
remain entirely within the white area when it has been centered between the
edges of the outermost border, otherwise it will get cropped by the edge of
the printable area. But this is easy to see in the Preview dialog.

If you're printing with an Epson, rather than go through all that above,
just go into the Advanced printer settings and make sure that the printable
area is set to "Centered" rather than "Maximum". Then you can tell Elements
to center the printout and all will be just fine.

If someone is actually having a problem with a Canon printer, post here with
the model number. I would be pleased to download the driver for that
printer as well, and see if there are any settings in the printer driver
that would help (as there is in the Epson drivers).

Pete

[Nancy S]

Peter,

You put in a lot of time and effort on this. Those with HP printers who wish to center will find this helpful I'm sure.

[Peter Duniho]

"Nancy S" <nancyandtom@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:2ccd37b1.3@webx.la2eafNXanI...

> [...] Those with HP printers who wish to center will find this helpful I'm

sure.

....and with similar issues on other brands. One can only hope. :)

[larrysimon]

Pete,

I agree with Nancy, very helpful, thanks.

Larry

[Beth Haney]

Peter, thanks for the work you did on this. This laptop doesn't have the 1215 loaded, so I can't experiment until later, but I will. Of course, by now I have all those numbers memorized! :)