Why can't I print this file???

[Milomade]

I've designed a set of greetings cards in affinity - all b+w outline drawings, so when printed the kids can colour them in and send them off to friends and family. All the different designs are on separate layers - all print absolutely fine.

Tonight I decided to add a rainbow design to the existing ones. Drew this out using ellipses and nothing out of the ordinary. When I go to print, it just hangs....forever! If I cancel printing I then cannot select anything in the file, can't edit, can't click on any tools or layers and simply have to shut it down.

I started again with a fresh file and re-created the design - still won't print.

I took the rainbow ellipses out. Took a while, but the rest of the design printed. So there's something about these elipses that will not print.

My greetings cards are 120mm x 240mm and I've even tried a test to print the design onto A4 paper rather than the custom size. Again if the elipses are switched off, it prints the rest of the design just fine, if the ellipses are switched on it just hangs.

I switched off my laptop and printer, restarted both, re-opened the file and the same issue occurs. My Canon printer is not low on ink and will print any other document I fire at it except this one.

Does affinity hate rainbows??

SmileBoxCardsRainbows.afdesign

[MikeW]

Export to pdf and print the pdf.

I don't have any idea why it doesn't easily print.

[Jowday]

2 hours ago, Milomade said:

I've designed a set of greetings cards in affinity - all b+w outline drawings, so when printed the kids can colour them in and send them off to friends and family. All the different designs are on separate layers - all print absolutely fine.

Tonight I decided to add a rainbow design to the existing ones. Drew this out using ellipses and nothing out of the ordinary. When I go to print, it just hangs....forever! If I cancel printing I then cannot select anything in the file, can't edit, can't click on any tools or layers and simply have to shut it down.

I started again with a fresh file and re-created the design - still won't print.

I took the rainbow ellipses out. Took a while, but the rest of the design printed. So there's something about these elipses that will not print.

My greetings cards are 120mm x 240mm and I've even tried a test to print the design onto A4 paper rather than the custom size. Again if the elipses are switched off, it prints the rest of the design just fine, if the ellipses are switched on it just hangs.

I switched off my laptop and printer, restarted both, re-opened the file and the same issue occurs. My Canon printer is not low on ink and will print any other document I fire at it except this one.

Does affinity hate rainbows??

SmileBoxCardsRainbows.afdesign 45.42 kB · 1 download

Hi

Use the workaround - via pdf - from @MikeW

It is a bug in Affinity Designer. Don't pull out more hair, @Milomade and don't waste more time on it. Let Serif look at it.

🥶

[Sean P]

Hi Milomade,

Your cloud shape and the curves that form the rainbow all have a dash pattern of 0 0.05 0 0 - this is incredibly small and doesn't give the appearance of a dashed line. I believe it is likely sending A LOT of values to the printer as it tries to interpret all the miniscule dashes.

If you select these objects and change the Stroke Style to be a 'Solid Line Style' you will be able to print your document. How did you create the objects - do you know why they have a dashed line on them?

[Milomade]

2 hours ago, Sean P said:

Hi Milomade,

Your cloud shape and the curves that form the rainbow all have a dash pattern of 0 0.05 0 0 - this is incredibly small and doesn't give the appearance of a dashed line. I believe it is likely sending A LOT of values to the printer as it tries to interpret all the miniscule dashes.

If you select these objects and change the Stroke Style to be a 'Solid Line Style' you will be able to print your document. How did you create the objects - do you know why they have a dashed line on them?

Thanks for pointing this out - I hadn't noticed that at all - I'll change it to a solid line and see if that fixes it - thanks for checking.

[Milomade]

Success!

Hurray!

Thanks!

[Jowday]

7 hours ago, Milomade said:

Thanks for pointing this out - I hadn't noticed that at all - I'll change it to a solid line and see if that fixes it - thanks for checking.

It was in fact visible:

I wasn't thorough enough yesterday - I did see that the lines had jagged edges and rendered slowly. I believed the CPU was just running wild and the program slowing down. It was actually a good clue. Normal lines are rendered with smooth edges: