Crop Marks Unstable or Buggy when printing Artboards with N-Up

[Jordan JD Peterson]

Using Affinity Designer to print business cards, I created a Letter document with two Artboards at 3.5 inches wide by 2.0 inches tall. I then go to the print dialog, Scale: 100%, Orientation: Portrait, and under Layout, Paper size: Letter, Model: N-Up, Across: 2, Down: 5, Repeat: 10, Skip: 0, Left: 0.75, Top: 0.5, H Gap: 0, V Gap: 0. Under Bleed and Marks, I check "Include Printer Marks", "Include Crop Marks", and "Edge Only". There's no red alerts to sizing issues. All appears centered. Using a print preview from the Brother DCP-L2540DW driver, I get 2 out of the three crop marks on the x axis, but on the y axis, no crop marks. There is plenty of room on the left and right margins for the crop marks, but they refuse to print in the preview. What am I missing?

I've tried every variation. At one time I reduced the left gap under layout to smaller, and the crop marks appeared, but I couldn't reproduce the marks in the preview outputs by returning to those inputted values. Please see attached images.. Also notice how PagePlus X9 with similar N-up printing settings gives me the crop marks I desired. 

Some Notes somewhat connected: Granted I did buy Affinity Designer to do as much as possible along with Serif PagePlus, and would have purchased Affinity Publisher at the time if it was released or had a working beta rather than Serif PagePlus which was out of support by the time of my purchase. With the release of Affinity Publisher, which I currently have money for but have no way to purchase without a bank or Paypal at the moment, notice that linked files are now embedded, shorting me of the function I purchased in dynamically linked files within files. If printing features following suit given to Designer are now being dropped in favor of Publisher, I certainly hope that the software I purchased from Serif is not becoming stale because of new products. I do have a trial of Affinity Publisher which will run out anytime now, but would like to know that I can print business cards in my formerly purchased software from Serif. If Serif will reduce function in Designer to promote sales in Publisher, who's to say that a forth product will surface and publisher also become stale? Maybe I am wrong here; I certainly hope I'm wrong. It seems Serif company is sincere to give people quality without jipping them like bigger companies do with overpriced subscription plans. The design of Serif's apps are outstanding, and well engineered, thus my choice to consider any of your products for my design needs. I have valued that I can reinstall my PagePlus or Designer tools every time I need them. I love that!! I do appreciate the Affinity business model, but this little crop mark in combination with dynamically linked files being dropped has raised concern. Designer was the workhorse while Publisher was being developed. I hope it remains the workhorse I purchased a couple years back. 

Perhaps crop marks for Artboards are being overlooked in favor of Publisher, or maybe the core engine of Designer is the same in Publisher.. Either way, I hope to get crop marks printing. If you have suggestions of what I can do to get around this bug, please provide me a solution. I want Publisher, but I have no way to get it right now unless by COD.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jordan JD Peterson

Edited February 9, 2020 by Jordan JD Peterson
Add screenshots, and add PagePlus X9 beautiful crop marks

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @Jordan JD Peterson.

I don't have an answer to your question, but I think a clarification might help. Are you saying that the crop marks don't print, or just that they don't show in the on-screen preview? It's unclear to me from what you've said which of those you mean.

Thanks.

[Jordan JD Peterson]

Thanks for welcoming me to the forum @walt.farrell.. I don't usually join forums, but I do value Serif products, and can't help but want them to be a success over Adobe.

Yes, the attached images show the print preview window, and not the actual prints, which I'm trying to save myself from making any mistakes.

I was able to duplicate another job in the legacy app Serif PagePlus X9, and the crop marks appeared just beautifully in the print preview (also attached to the original message).

I've only been working with print preview function of the Brother DCP-L2540DW Laser driver. I would think the preview would somewhat mimic the actual print. I hope this answers your question.

Thanks for chiming in Walt.

 

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome. And thanks for the additional info. I'll mention that there after no images attached to your posts in this topic, as far as I can see 

[Jordan JD Peterson]

Thanks @walt.farrell,

I had edited the original post and added screenshots. Perhaps if I didn't get the images into the first go around, maybe it's not showing. I'm sure you already tried "Refreshing" the thread. Maybe there is more I don't understand with this forum that would help me out. Thanks for letting me know though.

[Sean P]

Hi Jordan,

Sorry for the long delay in responding. Have you tried this in 1.8.3 at all? I've just tried tested both 1.7.3 and 1.8.3 using the Adobe PDF and Microsoft Print to PDF printers and both are giving me the correct output (see attached PDFs). Unfortunately I don't have access to a Brother printer, the only printer I currently have access to is a HP Deskjet 3050a which doesn't seem to have a PDF print test facility.

MicrosoftPrinttoPDF.pdf AdobePDF.pdf