Affinity Designer 1.9.2.1035 Print scaling Bug

[Jordan JD Peterson]

Affinity Designer Printing Bug

After updating Affinity Designer from 1.9.1 yesterday to 1.9.2.1035 I noticed a major print scaling bug in the program. On print preview within Designer no red lines showed any overprinting errors. Long story short, items in Designer print out larger than set and thus get cropped out of print range on the right and lower edges.

To be specific, I created a Letter document and populated it with an array of equally sized blocks for printing. Upon printing I noticed the right and bottom of the print were cutoff. After checking the document size settings, scaling, and any other print setting affecting items printing larger than specified, everything was at nominal values used in prior versions not suffering this bug. 

Workaround

The workaround involved exporting the project as a PDF and print via Adobe Acrobat.

Downgrading?

I just tried to install the 1.9.1 version over the 1.9.2 and I get a "Setup failed" error. Is there any other way to downgrade other than uninstalling, reinstalling 1.9.1, and re-entering the registration keys?

Is this bug known and being fixed?

I couldn't find a similar bug for 1.9.2 on the forums so my guess is it's not been spotted yet. If the Affinity team is onto fixing this in the next day, then I may wait for the update while hobbling along on PDF exports for printing.

Notes

I've posted this on the 1.9.2 release thread (duplicate), but had second thoughts on the critical importance of this bug being overlooked there, so I created this topic in hopes to avoid this being overlooked.

[Jordan JD Peterson]

I just downgraded to 1.9.1.979 ...

to see if the print bug above in 1.9.2.1035 was present and found the bug less pronounced, but still present. This now explains why my prints were shifted off center.

I reopened the same file used in my opening thread above, opened Print, then Print to get my preview. I noticed that a little of the right side of my page is short, but not as bad as in 1.9.2.1035. I then put an inside aligned black outline around the right most element to see if the print is being cutoff. Going through print dialog again and preview, sure enough my border is cutoff.

It looks like a printing bug is spanning multiple versions of Affinity Designer which I am saddened to know about. Printing in Affinity Designer is no good until the developers address this major print issue. Unfortunately the only way to print from Affinity Designer in the last two versions is to do a PDF export and print from Adobe Acrobat or other PDF reader.

I apologize for not providing images from version 1.9.2.1035, but take the images below and imagine even more is cutoff. It's apparent the bug is getting worse as Affinity Designer comes out with new versions.

 

[ahffinity]

I am having the same issue since a recent upgrade to 1.9.2. This is first I'm trying to print a borderless file since the update to 1.9.2. At any rate, when trying to print borderless a large portion of the document is cut off on the right, even with the designs being centered to the page, and then a larger margin is to the left side of the page (viewed in preview on screen). I hope this gets fixed soon as many of my files now have been re-saved as 1.9.2 versions so rolling back isn't much of an option if the software won't open the file due to it having features of a newer version of affinity.

[Jordan JD Peterson]

11 hours ago, ahffinity said:

> I hope this gets fixed soon as many of my files now have been re-saved as 1.9.2 versions so rolling back isn't much of an option if the software won't open the file due to it having features of a newer version of affinity.

I hope it gets fixed soon also.

File saves may be backward compatible with previous versions

However, I was able to load the 1.9.2 files in 1.9.1 after my downgrade test. It's possible that you may be able to downgrade even a few more versions and still be able to manage the newer version save files.

Bugs that caused me to return to 1.9.2 from 1.9.1

I found another bug in 1.9.1 that caused me to revert back to 1.9.2. Linked resources get huge padding spaces around them when dropping them into a new document. Maybe you know what this is, but I started to use it more recently to save time. 

Linked Resources

If you have a bunch of elements to tile across a page and you notice something wrong in the design you'd have to erase all the duplicates, change the original, and then reduplicate again. There's a better way to handle this. If you edit the single design in one file, save it, then create a new layout document for printing or tiling that design, then you can drag drop your single design onto the page for duplication. If you want to edit or make a change, just double click on any of the tiles and it will open the single design for editing. Under Document Properties, Linked should be set rather than Embedded. Then whenever you update the single design file, the tiled file also gets updated.

Perhaps you're more advanced in the program than I and already know this, but in version 1.9.1 when I drag a single design for replication in another project I got these huge padding gaps around the actual design element which wouldn't snap to my grid correctly. After upgrading to 1.9.2 again this bug was gone. 

However printing is worse than in 1.9.1, but until Affinity figures out why some printing functions in their code are getting very little attention, I will have to use PDF exporting for everything I'm going to print. This has been my only workaround to the print scaling issues we both have noticed.

Final thoughts

I was beginning to wonder if anyone else would see this thread. I'm happy to see it's available to others.

Thanks for your comments and similar findings.

[Sean P]

On 4/3/2021 at 5:47 AM, Jordan JD Peterson said:

Affinity Designer Printing Bug

After updating Affinity Designer from 1.9.1 yesterday to 1.9.2.1035 I noticed a major print scaling bug in the program. On print preview within Designer no red lines showed any overprinting errors. Long story short, items in Designer print out larger than set and thus get cropped out of print range on the right and lower edges.

To be specific, I created a Letter document and populated it with an array of equally sized blocks for printing. Upon printing I noticed the right and bottom of the print were cutoff. After checking the document size settings, scaling, and any other print setting affecting items printing larger than specified, everything was at nominal values used in prior versions not suffering this bug. 

Hi Jordan JD Peterson,

Are you trying to print borderless. We do have some reports of this being offset and they all seem to be from Canon users who have a Print Preview available to them. Unfortunately we're all still working from home, and currently I only have access to a non-borderless HP Deskjet 3050a which doesn't have a print preview function. I have however retrieved the margins from the printer and my prints are printing with all the content inside the margin, and none outside. See attached photo and screenshot of what I was printing (also attached, though its in A4). I suspect it is going to be related to Canon drivers which unfortunately I cannot install without having a Canon printer  

Would it be possible to share the document you're printing out please?




 

On 4/3/2021 at 5:47 AM, Jordan JD Peterson said:

Downgrading?

I just tried to install the 1.9.1 version over the 1.9.2 and I get a "Setup failed" error. Is there any other way to downgrade other than uninstalling, reinstalling 1.9.1, and re-entering the registration keys?

That is intended behaviour. The installer will only ever upgrade and cannot downgrade. You have to uninstall the latest version if you wish to install an earlier version. That said you will not be required to enter your product key everytime.

On 4/3/2021 at 5:47 AM, Jordan JD Peterson said:

Is this bug known and being fixed?

I couldn't find a similar bug for 1.9.2 on the forums so my guess is it's not been spotted yet. If the Affinity team is onto fixing this in the next day, then I may wait for the update while hobbling along on PDF exports for printing.

As mentioned above we're aware of an issue with some users having issues with borderless printers that is with development to be looked at, though with us all working from home access to hardware is a little tricky still.

On 4/3/2021 at 5:47 AM, Jordan JD Peterson said:

Notes

I've posted this on the 1.9.2 release thread (duplicate), but had second thoughts on the critical importance of this bug being overlooked there, so I created this topic in hopes to avoid this being overlooked.

Please don't create bug reports in the release threads - they will only get moved to a separate topic in the Bugs forum.

BordersPrinting.afdesign

[Jordan JD Peterson]

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the reply. However, I'm not printing borderless, although at some point I'd like that to be in tip top working order.

As for the Canon being the issue, I'm not sure why Adobe Acrobat has no problem sending the right dimensions to the Canon Preview window. These days I'm having to output everything to PDF because I want to see a preview before wasting high cost medium. 

What's also interesting is how 1.9.1 has less of the scaling issue than 1.9.2, but still scales up a tad. I run everything through print preview. I've not had other printing issues with this process besides trying to print from Affinity in recent versions. 

So what else could it be? I've updated my print drivers and the printer firmware. I'll give it another whirl and see if 1.9.2 scales the output upwards.

Attached is one of the files exhibiting the scale-up issue at print preview. Exporting to PDF and printing from Adobe Acrobat print previews and prints as expected. However in Affinity the right side is cut off and when measuring each element with a ruler, they are larger than designed.

Thanks for your time Sean.

2021-04-02 Thank you - card redesigned arrayed for printing - Xyzl Nicole Alcoran.afdesign

[ahffinity]

 Hi Sean , 

I am a canon user here. Canon pixma pro 10. Prior to 1.9 I hadn't noticed any issues with getting my prints directly out of affinity. With this latest version ( I suspect probably 1.9.1-ish release too but ironically I had no need to print until after my upgrade to 1.9.2. 🤣 ) I am printing border-less as I need to place my designs quite close to the edge and the standard printing margins won't allow the spacing I need around my bookmarks and still print them out fully. I have attached the sample affinity file. The alignment of the bookmarks are center to page, equidistant between the vertical bookmarks. I don't normally use the preview before printing function for my prints but did so for this post to show what it looks like on screen but even w/o using the print preview the printing bounds within affinity definitely affects the final print cutting off the print significantly when one would like to print borderless. At least that's what I'm observing in my case. When I export the job into PDF I can print perfectly with the borderless setting.

I

I also have an Epson WF7720 that I tested as well borderless and not. Borderless printing appears to have an issue more-so than standard print outs.

BORDERLESS

 

NORMAL SIZE

On both printers, printing without borderless setting seems to work okay (of course project is cut off because I'm outside of the standard margin printing bounds). I have pics of both. For the Epson, the margin difference isn't huge and only seemed to affect my Epson printer so it's possible that the less than 1/16 margin difference is due to slight paper shift during print.

 

I pulled down Nicole's file and set up the print with borderless setting. Affinity preview suggests right side of the project (as you look at it on screen) will be cut off quite a bit so left side of printed copy will be cut off.

I then tried it without borderless checked and I have no issues with the print getting cut off. Jordan, even though you're not designing borderless in affinity, is it possible that the printer settings you have may have borderless checked off somewhere? *shrug* I only seem to have a huge margin cut-off problem when I select to print borderless. The issue is much less noticeable when I print normal sized.

Sorry for all the pictures but hopefully this helps get the issue across.

sample_print_file.afdesign

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by ahffinity
EMBEDDING PICTURES PROPERLY

[HANDJOJO]

I try another way to shrink to paper size, it is perfect sitting in the centre of paper as per attached result.

If I try to setup print borderless It look like over print the print size warning in Affinity Print dialogue box, so I don't try it. 

For the information I use Canon G3010 printer.

[Jordan JD Peterson]

19 hours ago, ahffinity said:

I pulled down Nicole's file and set up the print with borderless setting. Affinity preview suggests right side of the project (as you look at it on screen) will be cut off quite a bit so left side of printed copy will be cut off.

I'm sorry. I should have specified the paper output is LETTER. My print design was for letter 8.5x11". Your print preview error would be normal if printing on A4 which is narrower and longer.

[Komatös]

Hello @Sean P I have printed your test page. As you can see, the printout, without borders, is shifted.  And I use an Epson printer.

[ahffinity]

10 hours ago, Jordan JD Peterson said:

I'm sorry. I should have specified the paper output is LETTER. My print design was for letter 8.5x11". Your print preview error would be normal if printing on A4 which is narrower and longer.

Hi,

I was printing on letter setting just for clarification sake. Only when I tried to go borderless is when I got the overprint errors in the preview for your file and mine as well.

[ahffinity]

Just to add to what Komatos is seeing

 

Shifted prints on borderless even on Epson so doesn't seem to just be a Canon driver issue.

In the non borderless printing below, the margins do look sort of smaller on the left side in comparison with the right. But again if your project was center of page, not requiring borderless, it doesn't seem that the final print would be affected you'd still get your full image though probably not smack dab center on the page.

I decided to try to select the paper size in the affinty windows instead of defined by driver in the test below. It made no noticeable difference

 

Did the same tests with my canon printer and the output is the same. Shifted prints for borderless. An apparently issue even at normal size with margins not appearing to be same from left to right (on screen)

 

Then did a print to PDF. As expected since print is larger than standard margin it is cut off but the margin size from left to right looks equidistantprinttopdf1.pdf

[Ydono]

I am having the same issue. I did print the same image with the same printer but the first is from within Affinity and the Second is a pdf print from Windows. The pdf version printed correctly and the Affinity Version 1.92.1035 did not. 

[twinger]

I'm having a very similar problem in Affinity Publisher 1.9.2.1035, but it occurs even when not printing borderless. Everything I send to my Canon printers (Pro-100 and TS6120) is shifted to the left slightly.

I've reduced the problem to its simplest in the attached examples. I make an A4 document and centre a rectangle. Then I print. In the Affinity dialogue box it looks centred. But on the Canon print driver preview window the rectangle is off centre. It appears to be oddly scaled, but I can't fix it with the scaling option in AP.

Although I can reproduce this easily, it's not consistent. On one printer the problem occurs with A4 and not Letter. With the other it occurs with Letter but not A4. I have more than one driver for the Pro-100. On one driver it works one way, and on the other it works the other. Completely frustrating!

Note that I'm having this problem with all page sizes, A4, A5, Letter, etc. I don't recall this problem in earlier versions of AP, and the issue does not occur with other software using the same printers.

[Dominik T]

We have the same problem but it was good in 1.10.1 and after the 1.10.3 update we have installed yesterday, we had the problem again. Is it possible that you have reintroduced the issue? Our printer setup is a Minolta bizhub C250i and we print 8 booklets on SRA3 double sided. With 1.10.1.1142 front and back is perfectly aligned, with 1.10.3 wie have alignment issues.

I have the problem in Publisher, not Designer, my bad. But I think it uses the same print code.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Dominik T