ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PRINTING WITH THE AMIGA Apparently a lot of you out there are having the same problems with your attempts at graphics printouts that I have had. I hope that this article can help to solve some of them. First, I would like to say something about the Software Industry for their lack of printer support. If they mention anything about printing, it usually goes something like "select printer settings in Preferences then select Print from the Menu". Select what settings?? What do the bloody settings do after you've selected them???? Wouldn't it be nice if the people who wrote the programs told us the effect of selecting 8 lpi instead of 6 lpi?? Or give us some idea that if you change Pitch from 10 to 15 you also have to change the margins to suit? That changing the page length can be used to change the height to width ratio of the printout. Wouldn't it be nice if the Computer manufacturer (COMMODORE) would tell us about these things in the user's manual??? Yes, there are some explanations in the manual and now that I have figured everything out for myself I can make some sense of them. But, before that they were as clear as mud. Very thick mud... Next, PRINTER DRIVERS. Selling a printer without a driver for it is like selling a car without a transmission. Imagine buying a $20,000 car, hopping in to drive it away and it doesn't go. The engine starts and runs beautifully, the clutch works, the brakes work, the radio works, the windows go up and down, the doors open and close but the car won't move. You ask the salesman why it doesn't go and he says "Oh, we just sell the car we don't sell transmissions." You accept this explanation even though it doesn't make much sense to you, and ask where a transmission to fit your model of car can be found. The reply is "I don't know, maybe some of the spare parts houses would have one". Well, I can tell you that you will have an easier time finding a transmission than you will finding a Driver to suit your Printer. Come on, you Printer Manufacturers, there are only a few basic different computer systems. It wouldn't take all that much time to write a driver for each one. Even better, why the hell don't you all get together and adopt a standard Printer command code. Now that I've gotten that out of my system I'll get down to what I hope will be helpful information. CENTERING The first thing that you will have to do to get good printouts is to center your paper in the printer. Most software assumes that you are using 8 1/2"x 11" paper. But, most people in Australia are probably using A4(8 1/4"x 11 11/16"). Therefore the paper may not be centered in the printer. Printers usually have a ruler of some sort embossed on the top somewhere. If yours doesn't, don't worry, it isn't too difficult to center the paper. The main thing to remember in centering the sheet of paper is that a 10" printer only actually prints 8" wide. The extra 2" is there so that you can use a tractor feed with continuous paper and to provide room for some margins when using the full 8" wide printouts. So if you have a ruler on your printer then just put a mark at the top of a sheet of paper in the exact center and put it in the printer. Then use the paper release knob (it takes the pressure off of the paper so that you can move it around easily) and adjust the paper so that the mark on it is lined up on the 4" mark of the ruler. Once the paper is centered you then move the paper guides (usually plastic angles on top of the printer) so that they just touch each edge of the sheet. From then on (as long as you use the same size paper) the sheet will be perfectly centered. MAKING YOUR MARK If you don't have some sort of ruler or there are no numbers marked on the ruler, you can put your own markings on. To do this load your favorite Paint program (DeluxePaint etc.) and draw a thick line from the left edge of the screen to the right. If a toolbox or menu is on the screen then make sure that the line continues all the way to the edges. I.E. if you are using DeluxePaint you may have to hit Function key F-10 to remove the menu and toolbox. Once you have done that then go into Preferences and click on Change Printer. Change the left margin to 1 and the right margin to 80. Set the pitch to 10-Pica. Click on Custom and change the Length to about 5. Click on Graphics 1 and make sure that Aspect is set to Horizontal. Click on O.K. and then O.K. again. Then click on Use to return to your Program. Select Print after making sure that your Printer is hooked up and running and the paper is in place. You should get a thick line 8" wide printed on your paper. Measure it to make sure that it is 8" wide. If it isn't then you will have to go back and check to see if the line goes all the way to both edges of the screen. Once you have gotten an 8" line, you mark the center of it (should be exactly 4" in from either edge). You then put a mark on your printer or its ruler ((the clip that holds the paper against the platen (the platen is the rubber roller that moves the paper through the printer) is usually a good place)). After the center is marked you can put on any other measurements that you may need. You can then go through the procedure described above for centering the paper in the Printer. SETTING MARGINS I'll start out with the easiest thing first. Setting margins for text. The characters per inch that you set margins with tell you how many whole characters will fit into a horizontal line of one inch. If you are using 15 cpi then the right hand side of the 15th character (letter) will be on the one inch mark. As below. -->|abcdefghijklmno|<-- 0" 1" To get a one inch margin on each side of A-4 paper you will need the following settings. CHARACTERS RIGHT LEFT PER INCH MARGIN MARGIN 10 10 70 12 12 84 15 15 105 To select the proper page length click on Custom in the Page Size box and type in 70 for length if you are using 6 lpi (A4 is 11 11/16" long. 11/16" = .687". 11.678"*6 lpi = 70.068 lines for the whole page) For 8 lpi you should use 93. (By the way, Preferences will only recognize the new page length if you have clicked on Custom) If your Word processor has a place to set the number of text lines, then that should set at 58 @ 6 lpi or 77 @ 8 lpi. GRAPHICS THE MUCH AWAITED WORKBENCH 1.3 I guess that I should start the Graphics section by covering the extended and much appreciated (I think you will agree) features contained in the upcoming Version 1.3 of Workbench. SPEED The new WB prints much faster than the 1.2 version. In fact even on 180 x 180 dpi density it cuts printing time about in half. Forget the claims of printing 6 times faster. That only happens when you are using a draft quality density (such as 60x60 dpi). The resulting print is only good for giving you a rough idea what the final print will look like. However, taking 15 minutes for a sideways, 8" x 10", 180 x 180 dpi print is a lot better then taking 30 minutes. The program for increasing the printer speed is in the Devs/printer.device. It can be copied onto any disk that has the slower 1.2 Devs/printer.device. USING CLI For those of you that are new to the Amiga I will go through the copy procedure step by step. The rest can skip these paragraphs. Reboot with Workbench 1.3. Once it is on the screen, double click the left mouse button on the Workbench icon. Then double click on the System drawer in the Window that appears. That will cause the System window to appear. You double click on the Cli icon in that window. This will give you a CLI window and the cursor will be next to a 1>. Where I have put Diskname: you have to replace the word Diskname with the name of the disk that you want to copy the new information onto. If you don't know what the diskname is then put the disk in the diskdrive and adjust the cli window so that you can see the name written under its icon. Once you have written down the disks name, you just type it in place of Diskname. Now all you have to do is type: >copy devs/printer.device to Diskname:devs/printer.device Once you have done that you will get the faster Graphics print-outs. FEAR IS NORMAL AND HEALTHY If you haven't used CLI before or are afraid to try it, don't worry. You aren't alone out there. Many of us have gone through the same process. Remember, the First Commandmant of Computing is, never use the original copy of Software. Make a copy of it then put the original away in a safe, cool, dry place. Then make a copy of the copy and use it for any experiments or trials. Just relax, take your time, persevere and you will eventually get to where you are going. If you want to copy the new Preferences onto another disk then go into CLI again. I delete the old Preferences first because I have had some problems with read/write errors when trying to copy over the top of it. So just type in the following: Delete Diskname:preferences After the disk light has gone out for the last time then type Copy preferences to Diskname:Preferences. You will get a bonus because the new Preferences is about 3 kbytes smaller than the old one. THE ALL NEW GRAPHICS TWO The ANTIALIASING (slightly smooths out the sharp jagged corners on graphics prints) works ok but is more effective on smaller circles. The LEFT OFFSET window gives you the opportunity to set the point that you want your picture to start printing at. It is only adjustable to tenths of an inch. (I would have preferred to see it in pixel mode, but it works.) It also has a Center control, just click it on and the picture will be centered horizontally on the page automatically. COLOR CONTROL (No, this isn't something thought up by Bruce Ruxton.) The R.G.B. (Red, Green, Blue) adjustments in the Color Correct Box work very well. No longer will you have to go into a palette to adjust the colors (especially Blue and Green) so that the print will be close to those on the screen. You won't have all 4096 colors but you should be able to live with the 3172 that are left. It's a small price to pay for the more accurate printed colors that you get. However, in Digitized HAM screens (4096 colors) the red seems to come out better if left off. The dithering control produces quite noticeable differences in the dot patterns that are used to produce the large variety of colors that are obtained from the four inked sections contained on a color printer ribbon. It would be a good idea for you to try all three types to see which you like the best. DPI OR PIXELS A short explanation is appropriate here. The word -Pixels- comes from the words -Picture Elements- used to describe the smallest size dot that can be displayed on the Video Screen. The Pixel size varies with the Screen resolution. I.E., a Pixel on a 640x400 screen will be 1/4 the size of a Pixel on a 320x200 screen. (1/2 the height and 1/2 the width). DPI, on the other hand, refers to the number of Dots that the printer can print per inch on the paper. 24 pin Dot Matrix Printers can put down as many as 360 dots per inch. (Most Laser Printers can only manage 300 dpi). Even though the smallest Printhead pins are around .2 mm in diameter (approximately 127 per inch) they achieve 360 dpi by overlapping the Dots. This is accomplished by moving the Printhead only 1/360ths of an inch at a time. Unfortunately, the word -Pixels- and the letters -DPI- are being freely interchanged by a lot of people. Just remember that when used in conjunction with printing they both refer to the number of Dots that will be put on the paper. Ok, back to Wb 1.3. The Density feature gives the following settings for my printer. (NEC Pinwriter CP6) SETTING HORIZONTAL VERTICAL DPI DPI 1 90 180 2 120 180 3 180 180 4 120 360 5 180 360 6 360 180 7 360 360 These figures mean that when I print out a graphic file in setting #1 I will get 90 dots or pixels per inch across the page and 180 dots or pixels per inch down the page. It doesn't matter if I am printing the picture out across the page or sideways down the length of it. I will always get 90 dpi across the page (horizontal) and 180 dpi down the page (vertical). It's very important to remember that. How do you know what density your printer is producing? With the extra controls available in WB 1.3 it is quite easy to determine your printers density rate. Go into Preferences, click on Change Printers, select the proper driver for your printer, click on Graphics 1 and select Horizontal, click on Graphics 2, select Pixels in the Limits box at the center bottom of the screen. Move to the Width Limit box to the left of the screen and type in 180 then type 180 in Height Limit. Go to the Density box at top right of the screen and select 1. Click on OK, click on OK, click on USE. Now you should be back in the WBench screen. Make sure that your printer is turned on and paper has been inserted. Double click on the Graphicdump Icon in the System window. After a bit of Diskdrive grinding your printer should produce a small picture of the screen in front of you. If you go back into Preferences Graphic 2 , select Density 2 and print it out, and keep repeating this procedure for all seven Density settings you will have seven small prints of the WB screen. (Always leave the Width and Height limits set at 180 x 180.) You then measure the Width and Height of the pictures on the paper and with a little bit of arithmetic you can calculate how many dots per inch that your printer is laying down on the paper. THE NUMBERS GAME The Formula is easy enough. Just divide the 180 pixels Width limit by the number of inches of the pictures width. (180 divided by 1.5" (1 1/2") = 120). Thus a 1 1/2" wide picture containing 180 pixels (dots) is being printed at 120 dpi Horizontally. Then divide the 180 pixel Height limit by the number of inches of the pictures Height (length). (180 divided by 3" = 60). Thus a 3" high picture containing 180 pixels (dots) is being printed at 60 dpi Vertically. The following table is based on some of the results that I got with my NEC CP6. (Prtdrvgen). Wide x High Horiz x Vert (inches) (dpi) 1 1/2 x 3 120 x 60 2 x 1 90 x 180 1 1/2 x 1 120 x 180 1 x 1 180 x 180 If all this has left you high and dry, I will try to clarify it a little. We told Preferences (in the Graphics 2 section) that we wanted to print a picture exactly 180 pixels wide by 180 pixels high. Therefore, if your printer produced a picture exactly 1" x 1" then the Density number that you chose has programmed your printer to produce 180 dpi Horizontally and 180 dpi Vertically. Likewise, if you got a print size of 1 1/2" x 3" then that Density number has programmed your printer to produce 120 dpi Horizontally and 60 dpi vertically. The arithmetic is simple, but if like me you have trouble adding up more than one number, I will elaborate a bit more. You have told the computer that you want to put exactly 180 dots (pixels) wide and exactly 180 dots (pixels) high on the paper by typing those numbers in the Height and the Width boxes in Graphics 2. Now, if your printer is putting 120 dpi across the page (horizontally) that means that the printer will still have 60 dots (pixels) left to print after printing 1" ( remember, you have 180 pixels total to print, so 180 - 120 leaves you with 60 more to print). 60 dots at the rate of 120 dpi will cover an area of 1/2". Therefore, a 180 pixel wide picture will cover 1 1/2" when printed in the 120 dpi horizontal mode. You've probably gotten way ahead of me by now but I will go through the vertical size of the picture to finish off. The reason that the picture printed at 120 x 60 is 3" long is because we have 180 pixels (dots) to make up the height of it. At 60 dpi we can only put 60 dots (pixels) per inch on the paper. (we have 180 pixels (dots) to print, so 180 divided by 60 equals 3). Therefore, 3" high. The major things to remember are: One: the number of Pixels that you select in the Graphics 2 Width and Height limits are the total number of Pixels (dots) that the printed picture will contain in the respective directions. Two: the actual printed size of the Picture is determined by the selected Printer density in conjunction with total number of Pixels. *** This article is continued as PRINT.MANUAL_2 in this drawer *** %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% END OF PRINT.MANUAL_1 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% [Continued from PRINT.MANUAL_1] KNOWLEDGE IS ONLY AS GOOD AS ITS USES Ok, so how do we use these controls to make the pictures come out the size that we want? If you have managed to follow me so far then the rest should be fairly easy. Let's select Density 1, which gives me a printout density of 90 dpi x 180 dpi. I decide that I want to print a picture 2" wide by 3" high on the right side of the page. I will go to the Limits box and click on Pixels, then type 180 (90 dpi x 2" wide = 180) in the Width limit and 540 (180 dpi x 3" high = 540) in the Height limit. I then go to the Left Offset box at the top of screen in the center. This box allows me to select the place that I want the left edge of the picture to be. I said that I wanted a 2" wide picture on the right side of the page. So I type 6 into the box. That means that the picture will start printing 6" in from the left side. It will print a Picture 2" wide which means that right side of the picture will be on the 8" mark. By going through the GraphicDump procedure I will soon know if I did everything properly. This leaves us with the fun thing. Printing Vertically (sideways). It is no more difficult to print sideways (vertically) than it is to print normally (horizontally). It just takes a little rethink. First, remember that the printer density doesn't change when you change the printing Aspect. 90 x 180 dpi or 90 Horizontal x 180 Vertical means that the printer will print 90 dpi across the width of the page and 180 dpi down the length of the page. The orientation of the picture has no affect on those settings. So if I want to print the same size picture that I did above but I want it sideways, I will have to change a couple of things. First because the 3" length of the picture will be across the width of the page we have to change the Left Offset to 5. So the bottom of the print will be at the 5" mark and the top will be at the 8" mark (across the 8.25 measurement of the paper). The Width Limit always refers to the width of the picture when looking at it rightside up. It doesn't matter whether the printer is printing normally (horizontally) or sideways (vertically). So while the width is oriented across the 8.25" measurement of the paper in the Normal (horizontal) print, the Width is oriented along the 11.66" measurement of the paper in the Sideways (vertical) print. This means that to get a 2" wide picture sideways (vertically), I have to take into account that the printer is printing 180 dpi down the page (that corresponds to the width of the picture in a sideways (vertical) print). 180 dpi x 2" = 360. So type 360 into the Width Limit box. Also, because the printer is putting 90 dpi across the page (which corresponds to the height of the picture in a sideways (vertical) print) we have to multiply by 3 to get the Height Limit. 90 dpi x 3" = 270. Type 270 in the Height Limit. Now click on OK and then click on Graphics 1. Click on the Vertical box on the left side of the screen. That will give you a sideways (vertical) print of your picture. Click on OK, click on OK and then Click on Use. Now click on Graphicdump again and you will have a 2" x 3" picture, but you have to take the paper out of the printer and turn it counterclock-wise to orient it properly. See, nothing to it. BUT I DON'T HAVE WORKBENCH 1.3 Ok, so you say that all of this information about adjusting picture size by pixels isn't much good if you don't have Workbench 1.3. But DELUXEPRINT has a print control panel called Custom. It allows you to set Width and Height by Pixels. The above information applies to this program as well as WB 1.3. However, to put the left edge of the print where you want it to be, you will have to go into Preferences and select the necessary Left Margin instead of using the Left Offset of WB 1.3. Sizing by Margins and Lpi DELUXEPAINT II uses Left and Right margins and Page length combined with Lines per inch to determine the size of the print. However, it only requires a little more work to get acceptably precise printouts. Horizontal Printing The amount of the 8.25" width of the paper that you actually use is controlled by the Left and Right margins. As well as controlling the width of the picture, you can determine how far in from the left side of the paper that the print will start. So by considerate use of the margin settings you can produce pictures smaller than Postage stamps anywhere on the page. Even better, you can produce your own Floppy disk labels on the readily available 68mm x 68mm self adhesive labels. To kill two birds with one stone, I will use the Disk labels as an example of how to set the Margins and the Page length. In Preferences you have a choice of three Pitch sizes (characters per inch). 10-12-15. ((If you are using the Prtdrvgen for an Nec CP6 or 7, or an Epson LQ printer, then the 15 is actually 20 cpi. (By the way, you can change the settings in Prtdrvgen if you like)). The larger number pitches give you more characters per inch therefore each individual character takes up less space. That means that you have greater accuracy when using 15 cpi than when using 10 cpi. One character at 15 cpi = 1/15th of an inch. However, one character at 10 cpi = 1/10th of an inch. That subtle difference can be very useful in some cases. Therefore, I keep my Pitch set at 15 cpi. (Prtdrvgen users for the Nec and Epson LQ printers should substitute 20 for 15, which means that one character at 20 cpi = 1/20th of an inch. Very handy.) Now, if you don't already have a picture on the Deluxepaint screen, then load the one that you want on your label. Then go into the fonts menu and select Diamond 12. (It shows up fairly well) Go to the Styles menu and select Bold. I suggest using all Capital letters, so hit the Caps Lock. Then just type in the Disk name at the very top of the screen. To do this you will have to hit the Function Key F10. This will remove the Menus from the screen. Once you have typed the name in you hit F10 again and the menus will reappear. If the picture colors tend to hide the name then paint a white rectangle the same height of the letters and retype the name. LABEL WIDTHS The sheets of labels that I bought at a local Stationary and Book Store are 8 7/8" wide. (Nothing ever fits does it.) So I line up the perforation on the left side of the left hand label with a mark exactly 4" to the left of the printers center mark. That means that the printer can start printing exactly on the left edge of the Label. But to preclude one of the printers pins getting stuck or bent in the perforation you will have to set the left hand margin on 2. At 15 cpi that means that the label will have a 1/15" left margin. (The first character will not be printed) The label is 2 21/32" square. So at 15 cpi 2" will take 30 characters. 21/32" is very close to 20/30" which is equal to 10/15" (20 divided by 2 = 10, 30 divided by 2 = 15. Hence 10/15), so we add another 10 characters to the 30 that we already have for the 2" and we get 40 for the total number of characters that can be printed on the label. But we set a margin of 1 on the left side, so to balance it out we will leave the same margin on the right side. That means that we use 39 for the right margin. Height The length or height is fairly critical if you want to have the name of the disk showing on the 1/8" wide top. (That will allow you to pick out the disk that you want while looking at your disk box from above.) The maximum length should be 2 1/4". (That is the distance from the bottom of the slightly indented area of the disk that you stick the labels on, plus an extra 1/8" for the thickness of the disk at the top.) At 8 lpi 2 1/4" is 18 lines. But, Deluxepaint will not give you 2 1/4" if you select 18. I don't know why, can anybody out there tell me? To get exactly 2 1/4" you will have to divide 18 by 0.82. That will give you 21.95, which you can round out to 22. The figure of .82 is used for all Horizontally printed pictures. The Vertical pictures use a different percentage, I'll get to that a bit later. THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING To print a label in color we set everything in the DeluxePaint Print window as follows. Orientation: Normal Shade: Color Left margin: 2 Right margin: 39 Page length: 22 % Wide: 100% % High: 100% Number of Copies: 1 Before you put the sheet of labels into the printer, you will have to put a light pencil mark 2 1/4" up from the bottom of the label that you want to print on. You then align that line with whatever mark is on your printers printhead or the card holder (usually a clear plastic rectangle with an opening through which the printhead actually prints. It is put there to keep the paper from moving away from the rubber platen) to indicate where the top of the 1st line of print will be. You are now ready to do your first label. If you don't want to take a chance on wasting a label, then do a test printing on a plain sheet of paper first and compare the finished print with a disk and also with your sheet of labels. (I strongly recommend doing this. Little mistakes are easy to make.) Once you are satisfied that the settings are right then print your label. Second Column of labels My sheet of labels measures 2 13/16" to the beginning of the second column. 2 x 15 = 30 plus 12 for the 13/16" = 42. Add 1 for the safety margin and you end up with 43 for the left margin. We need a picture width of 37. (using the margins for the first column of labels -- 2 and 39-- 39 less 2 = a picture width of 37 characters.) So 43 left margin plus 37 gives you a right margin of 80. If you have changed the margins but the print comes out on the same place that it did previously, then turn the printer off and back on again to reset it. As an aside, I have found that printers some times cause errors in programs and even crashes. So if something is bothering you and you can't find a reason, try turning the printer off and on once. It can't hurt and it may solve the problem. Back to business. The following chart is what I have used for the sheets of labels that I have. You may have to change the margins a little bit to fit yours but by doing a couple of practice runs on plain paper you should get it right without wasting any actual labels. LABELS 1st Col Left- 2 Right- 39 2nd Col Left- 43 Right- 80 3rd Col Turn Sheet upside down and use the Margins for the 1st row. For page length use 22 @ 8 lpi. You have to turn the sheet upside down because the width of the 3 labels plus the space between them adds up to 8 1/4". Remember that the 10" printer will only print 8" wide, so the third column of labels would have a 1/4" of print missing on the right hand side. One of the very important uses of these size controls is that you can put 15 good quality pictures on one A-4 sheet of paper. That gives you a preview sheet to keep in a binder for a quick reference of what is on your Graphics disks. The following margins will enable you to do that. Preview Sheet 1st Col Left- 1 Right- 38 2nd Col Left- 42 Right- 79 3rd Col Left- 83 Right- 120 For page length use 17 @ 8 lpi. To put 5 rows of pictures on a 10" page with 1/4" between rows You will have 9" for the actual pictures. 9 divided by 5 = 1.8". 1.8" times 8 lpi = 14.4 lines. But, remember that you have to divide that with the .82 offset to get the true size. 14.4 divided by .82 = 17.56. To give a little extra space between the rows to write the picture names on, I round the 17.56 off to 17. Full Page Vertical Prints There are a couple of good reasons to printing Vertically. (Sideways) First, you can get a larger picture. Second, the horizontal lines inherent in a Dot Matrix print become vertical when the picture is turned sideways. For some reason most people find the vertical lines less intrusive than the horizontal ones. For small pictures such as those on the labels and the preview sheets the ratio between the height and width isn't really important. But, if you want to print round circles and square squares you must keep the same ratio as that on the Monitor screen. That ratio is 62.5%. (divide 200 by 320). Maintaining that ratio will ensure that the screen image is faithfully reproduced on paper. Lets put a print on A-4 paper. If we decide on a 10" picture width (down the length of the paper) then the proper height (across the width of the paper) will be 6.25". (10 x 62.5% = 6.25") A-4 paper is 11 11/16" long. So we subtract 10" from 11 11/16" and get 1 11/16" left over to divide between the top and bottom margins for the length of the paper. We put a mark 27/32" down from the top of the sheet so that the picture will be centered on the length of the paper. We subtract the picture width of 6 1/4" from the 8" total printing width capability of the printer and get 1 3/4" left over to divide between the left and right margins for the width of the paper. To center the picture over the width of the paper we will have to set a margin of 7/8" on each side. We won't be able to get it exact, but it will be very close if we choose 13 @ 15 cpi (15 cpi x 7/8" margin = 13.125) for the left margin and 107 (6 1/4" picture width x 15 cpi = 93.75 + 13 left margin = 106.75) for the right margin. I mentioned earlier that Vertical (sideways) printing required a different correction factor than Horizontal (normal) printing. The number that works for me is 117. We want a picture 10" long @ 8 lpi. That means a length of 80 lines. But, to get the right number of lines we have to divide 80 by 117. We get an answer of 68.37 lines. Lets round it off to 68. So we have the following settings. Orientation: Sideways Shade: Color Left margin: 13 Right margin: 107 Page length: 68 % Wide: 100% % High: 100% Number of Copies: 1 That should produce a very nice picture for your wall. As they say on T.V. "Works for me". Sideways pictures on Workbench 1.2 are quite simple to use because you aren't allowed to change the Height to Width ratio. It remains constant at 80%. (the height will be 80% of the width.) All that you have to do is set the margins (1 and 120 at 15 c.p.i.) to give you a 8" high picture (across the width of the paper) and leave the page length set on 70. The width (down the length of the paper) will automatically be 10". A couple of final hints and then I'll be on my way. The closer the Printhead is to the platen the less pronounced the horizontal lines will be. Therefore, thinner paper seems to give better results. My best prints have been done on Onionskin paper. The lower densities such as 90 x 180 dpi seem to minimize the horizontal lines. Especially when combined with thinner paper. I keep the color ribbons that are too worn for graphics prints and use them for letters to my family and friends. Not only can you get hundreds of Text pages out of a worn ribbon, but, it is a nice change to see text in the various colors available. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX END OF PRINT.MANUAL_2 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX