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Margin Errors, cause 0.5" offset in printed output


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I came across this bug today. This bug also existed in PagePlus and after a lot of BACK and FORTH you finally fixed it.

Silly me, I should have looked at this earlier. I just tried retrieving the margins from the printer in both Designer and Phota and this bug is in both those applications as well.

I was working on the creation of a stock certificate, using a pre-printed certificate that has a stylish frame that extends 32 mm in from the papers edge. I set the New document margins to 32 mm and kept all my text and graphics inside the margins. My HP K8600 printer has the following fixed margins (area's where the mechanism cannot print), of

  • LEFT: 0.13"
  • RIGHT: 0.13"
  • TOP: 0.13"
  • BOTTOM: 0.47"

The observant will note that 32 mm is equal to 1.25984", thus my Spread Setup with Margins of 32mm all around is well within the mechanical design of my printer.

Now, of course a stock certificate is printed in Landscape, so this should all work, right, NOPE!

I am including images that have margins that are retrieved by the Affinity Publisher application, using the Spread Setup Button, Retentive Margin from Printer.

One image is when I set Spread Setup to Portrait and you will note that the Margin at the bottom of the image occupies more space that the other three margins as this is an exact representation of the printers mechaincal design.

The second image is when I set Spread Setup to Landscape (unchecking Portrait) and you will note that the Margin at the bottom of the image occupies more space that the other three margins and this is COMPLETELY WRONG. The 0.47" margin in the image should be on the far right of the image to accurately reflect the mechanical design of the HP K8600 printer.

This is the exact same behaviour that I reported and you fixed in Serif PagePlus.

The problem with this bug is that it manifests as an offset print in Landscape such that the output in this case overwrites that nice stylish frame on the stock certificate.

Please, urgently, fix this, not only in Publisher, but also in Designer and Photo. Same code, same bug.

I have added two WORD 201 documents with the margins turned on. I also showed the Page Layout Dialog. Word has always worked properly  as expected when it comes to page layout and margins.

I have added two Serif PagePlus documents, and you can handily see that the layour for the MArgins exactly matches that of Word 2010.

 

Correct.thumb.jpg.a0467e1b3741d4322686768a237fb534.jpgWrong.thumb.jpg.3147dea2393b94d35b74bbb797182081.jpg

CorrectWordL.thumb.jpg.7d7a7b078b2e33e9fc8825080b75e61e.jpg

CorrectWordP.thumb.jpg.ca34bb25b76e6b4cd131e593d079513a.jpg

PagePlusP.thumb.jpg.a6bb961076785701ab14598e72fa979e.jpg

PagePlusL.thumb.jpg.ad017dbe5a567270dfc1b1ec2ff68d9c.jpg

 

 

 

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Sorry, your post leaves me a bit puzzled.

I've just set up a document in APub with margins of 32mm on each side. Works perfectly fine in versions .404 and .422. No matter whether it is landscape or portrait.

Could you share the .afpub document that causes the trouble?

 

 

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Look at each picture of each correctly (Word 2010 and PagePlus X9) oriented margins. These margins were set with Retrieve Margin from Printer.

Now, look at the Affinity Publisher (APub???) layout. These margins were set with Retrieve Margin from Printer. The 0.47" that the printer cannot print on is on the right side of the layout, it should be on the left side of the layout. This means, that when I set the margins, each of them to 32mm, even though they visually look fine on the computer monitor, when printed, the printing is displaced by 0.47" on the printed output. Worse, when I fiddle the margins in an attempt to accomdate this bug, the actual printed text and graphics disappear from the printed output for a band that is approximately 0.47".

This bug exists in All three Windows Affinity products, Publisher, Photo and Designer.

If your printer is mechanically designed so that it prints perfectly to the same margin on every side of a page, you will not see this bug when you print. On the other hand, as my printer does duplexing, that 0.47" unprintable area of the page is reserved from flipping the page. The HP Printer Driver tells the application about this when the application requests information about the printer capabilities.

So, if you have a printer that does duplexing, and does not have the same margins (these are physical limitations of the printer mechanism) do the following,

  1. Start Word and retrieve the margins from the printer for Portrait and Landscape orientations.
  2. Do the same with all of the new Affinity applications, and see the difference

As for the file that I see this on, it won't do you any good to have it, the moment you open it, you will end up with the margins from your default printer and I doubt that your printer is an HP K8600 that does duplexing.

All I did was start a NEW... document, page size of Letter (ANSI A) and the Retrieve Margin from Printer.

If I get a chance tomorrow, I'll do some printouts of each, take photographs and put them up.

Oh and the 32mm, I mention that only to indicate that this should have eliminated any influence of the printer design, but as the applications do not do the calculations properly, I end up with displace output.

Apub.thumb.jpg.f945afb77748a51ed0a4372450affe61.jpg

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Here are output files from each application, in both orientations. I used Export for the Affinity and Serif application and Save as PDF for Microsoft Word 2010.

In each case, in the creation of each file, I used the menu choice NEW... and I Retrieve Margin from Printer in each case.

I overlayed the margins with a 3 point frame to show you where the actual margins are.

The actual page edges are somewhat visible, they appear to be very fine light grey lines around the outside.

Microsfot Word 2010 and Serif PagePlus X9 get the margins correctly, although there are other nasty bugs inside PagePlus, like forgetting the page orientation when you reopen the Publication Setup menu.

WordLOK.pdf

WordPOK.pdf

DesignerLBad.thumb.jpg.ab898ea729a465dc20387db24ccb60db.jpg

DesignerPOK.thumb.jpg.01abe944f4d327e614fd30a6310f57cd.jpg

PagePlusLOK.thumb.jpg.0e2e1c753306638f505f7dec6b6e6d7d.jpg

PagePlusPOK.thumb.jpg.95ea7c5777670a8ef4d717423e462cfd.jpg

PhotoLBad.thumb.jpg.ee17f7fee481b0189ced797a106b0906.jpg

PhotoPOK.thumb.jpg.23798c9a71eda947f50bd25a08487c65.jpg

PublisherLBad.thumb.jpg.17c01781ce9ea1a8a092b7aa109c97b1.jpg

PublisherPOK.thumb.jpg.aaa5896a3b257ab43b4d21cda6e01cf2.jpg

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Well, I might still miss the point as I am in trouble to understand what you want really to achieve here, but perhaps these to workarounds help you:

  • Create a new document with orientation set to landscape and margins set manually (you can even create a preset for that in case you need this more than once)

or (if you want to enjoy the convenience to retrieve the well known printer margins automatically)

  • Create a new document with orientation set to portrait and then rotate the canvas by 90° while working on the design.
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Understanding this is not very hard.

On the images above, click on the first image and then use the right arrow to sequence through each image.

OBSERVE WHERE THE 0.47" PRINTER MARGIN IS LOCATED RELATIVE TO THE PAGE OUTPUT.

IN EACH AFFINITY PRODUCT, THE 0.47" PRINTER MARGIN IS IN TH WRONG PLACE.

THIS CAUSES THE LANDSCAPE PRINTED OUTPUT TO BE OFFSET BY 0.47".

No matter what the margin settings are, the printed output is offset by 0.47'

Attempting to compensate, by subtracting margin on one side and adding margin on the other side does not work. At a certain point, you exceed the algorithm of the printer driver and the printed output gets cut off.

The bug is not readily apparent on a monitor, except by retrieving the margins from the printer, and then highlighting the margins with a frame as I have done.

What I want to achieve is a 32mm margin, on each side of a page and have the printed output land centered vertically and horizontally in the middle of the page.

This bug prevents that from happening and twiddling with the margins as a "workaround" does not work.

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Here are four pictures of print from Publisher, Designer, Photo and PagePlus.

Although the PagePlus text says that the box is centered exactly, that's not quite right, the programmer never was able to fix the output properly. PagePlus could be fiddled to make its output prints properly without cutting off the output and I used it mostly for business cards. I used Word, Scribus, Expression Design and Inkscape for most everything else, documents, posters, handbills, menus and the like.

I had been hoping that with the Affinity grouping of products that I would get a set of tools to work with that had a common look and feel (User Interface), all 64 bit, so memory usage on my systems was optimized, and a more seamless workflow. This bug prevents me from working with these products, and maybe they are geared more towards a retired hobbyist use rather than a professional use.

As you can see, even though all the margins were set to 50mm, the output is offset by 10mm. Do you follow now?

This margin of error, is totally unacceptable.

 

00001.thumb.JPG.f05bf8dcd9529313da5f806ecd2e8187.JPG00027.thumb.JPG.984e1f1b1a44147bbe8289a44c23bd56.JPG00028.thumb.JPG.26139eb74524596d5a96bf2af3895c8e.JPG00029.thumb.JPG.aec38d69db3f1f40df5ffae6d7222428.JPG

 

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I see what you mean. And I tried to replicate the problem at my end - but I've failed. With two printers (Samsung CLX-3305 and Epson ET-3750) I get exactly what is requested.

When I retrieve the margins fromt the printer (Samsung, 4,3mm non-printable area on each side) I end up with a print that has margins of 4 to 5mm on each side, when I set the margins manually to 32mm on each side I get a print with margins 31 to 33mm (within the expected range of mechanical error).

Additionally I exported the designs to PDF. And they show correct margins as well (even the print made from Adobe Reader ist correct).

Perhaps it is more an issue of the specific printer driver than AfPub?

 

 

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Good, now you see it.

Now you have also identified why you cannot reproduce the problem.

Your printers have mechanically physical margins of 4.3mm all around.

My printer has one physical margin that is 0.47" on one side and 0.13" on the other three sides. My printer does duplex and this 0.47" margin is an unprintable area as this is used by the duplexing unit when handling the paper.

No, it is not a problem with my printer driver, it is a problem with Affinity.

They had the same problem with PagePlus, and after a lot of back and forth they finally figured it out and fixed it, but not perfectly. This is acknowledged in their PagePlus forum.

If this was a problem with my printer driver, then the problem would exist with the hundreds of other software applications that I use and print with on a regular basis and that is not the case.

This problem only happens with Affintiy Publisher, Designer and Photo and I WANT IT FIXED.

 

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Having extensively documented a showstopper bug in Publisher, Designer and Photo, will Affinity get right on it and fix it?

Other than this forum, does Affinity have an alternative Bug Tracking system?

When will you contact me directly?

Do you have a documented formal bug tacking process?

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Let me tell everyone this.

I use Word 2010, Corel PaintSHop Pro, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio, DesignSpark PCB, DesignSpark PCB, Scribus, LibreOffice, Nikon Capture NX-D, Nikon ViewNX, Inkscape, IrFanVIEW and many more applications. Each and every one of these applications correctly and accurately print their Landscape and Portrait output on my HP K8600 Printer.

Not one single Affinity product, not Publisher, not Photo and not Designer has ever printed a Landscape output correctly or accurately.

Obviously, Serif / Affinity have acknowledged that there is a problem and logged it.

As I had previously indicated, I went through the same back and forth over an extend period of time with the exact same problem in Serif PagePlus. Serif almost completely fixed the problem in PagePlus and at the time, as I did not have any other Serif applications was not able to determine if their other products also had the same flaw.

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Mr. Lagarto, I consider your input to be a contribution that confirms my bug report.

I don't do pissing into the wind during a blue moon. Workarounds are at best problematic, and usually worse.

All Affinity products (Publisher, Photo and Designer) on Windows, produce this bug.

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Not to belittle your efforts, but I have real physical print output from 40 or more applications that all work properly. In addition, I submitted photographic evidence of multple physical print output to substantiate my bug report.

What is,

I am reporting print margin anomalies with Affinity products. Should you wish to report print margin anomalies with other products, I strongly encourage you to contact those product manufacturers directly as I'm sure they do not read this Affinity BUG REPORT FORUM for Windows.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Any luck. tech stuff hurts my head. I don't know if I am having the same issue. All I want is to export my pdf file so that I can upload it in amazon KDP and I don't know if I am doing it right with margins. I have tried so many different ways. Either I have a very large margin, or it seems like its shifted out of place. I lined my images to the blue line but then after export and import to KDP. This is what I get. The blue lines are affinity and the dotted line is Amazon KDP. I make coloring books and it looks so out whack. If this is not the same problem as you having I hope you find your answer and I will keep looking.

78942500_10159089187862067_4107142741148827648_n.jpg

79237238_10159089187867067_6695126129176477696_n.jpg

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79337765_10159089190257067_5549733749484158976_n.jpg

"I dream of painting and then I paint my dream." - Vincent Van Gogh

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I would say that this is the same problem.

Something that might help, is to set your Windows DEFAULT Printer to be "Microsoft XPS Document Writer", which appears to have Left, Right, Top and Bottom Margins of 0 when retrieved from the Printer. Then, set your Margins to what you expect to use on the Amazon KDP output. Then export the the resultant file as PDF and cross your fingers.

Of course, this is all based on the assumption that even though they cannot properly write code to work with the Default Printer Driver, the PDF POSTSCRIPT code that they generate is OK.

 

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