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Why does Print dialogue always show a scaling of 24% for A4?


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  • Staff

It's because your document is A4 at 300dpi and the print dialog is applying a scale to make that fit the notional 72dpi of the device (72/300 = 24%)

 

We need a special 'Affinity' entry in the print dialog that replaces these system controls with Affinity-specific ones so we can read out 100% in this instance. It is doing the correct thing and will print at 300dpi, 100% but for now it just says something confusing, sorry :(

 

Thanks,

Matt

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Is this the same problem I have with A3 printing?

 

See attachment 1: Print set up (Horizontal)

 

The result is a vertical print and the sizes of the text are not correct to the sizes on the file. See attachment 2.

 

What went wrong?

Attached Thumbnails
  • post-12316-0-12966000-1435065545_thumb.p
  • post-12316-0-28782000-1435065638_thumb.j
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It's because your document is A4 at 300dpi and the print dialog is applying a scale to make that fit the notional 72dpi of the device (72/300 = 24%)

 

We need a special 'Affinity' entry in the print dialog that replaces these system controls with Affinity-specific ones so we can read out 100% in this instance. It is doing the correct thing and will print at 300dpi, 100% but for now it just says something confusing, sorry :(

 

Thanks,

Matt

Thanks Matt, but I don't really understand why it isn't a scale factor relating to the output media!

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I can't help with that, I'm afraid.

I can't get my head around this whole printing thing in AD/AP.  

Here's another example - I create a new A3 document in AD, put on a rectangle with black stroke near the edges, go to print, select A3 paper and then get what is shown on the attachment!  Print is nowhere near the edges and nothing like what is shown on screen.

Can someone please explain what is going on?

post-12287-0-72005000-1435136086_thumb.jpg

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  • Staff

Hi iMac1943 - it looks like you're using the Mac App Store version which has slightly different print UI and functionality. If you try the Beta version (which is what imacken is using) it may make more sense :)

 

Hi imacken - the scale is initialised when you enter that dialog and does not get refreshed when you change paper size. Is it possible to set your printer's default paper size to A3 then try again? Does that succeed?

 

I am aware that the printer dialog needs further attention and intend to hide the system's (unhelpful) scale and offer our own entries so this will be resolved properly. I can only offer my sincere apologies in the meantime... :(   I should also note that every single graphics program I have tried on OS X (with the exception of Adobe's dialog which completely circumvents OS X system UI) has flaws with its print UI, so Affinity is not alone but I have a plan to resolve this soon.

 

Thanks again,

Matt

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Matt, thanks a lot for the reply.

I remain, however, completely confused by how to print in AD.  You suggest changing the default paper size for the printer, but how do I even do that?

Almost every print dialogue box I have come across over the years has a scale option for the image on the paper it is printing to.  In addition, there is almost always a 'scale to fit' option alongside the 'scale %' one.  I can't see why AD's scale should be relating to a 72dpi device and not the output paper!

You say 'every single graphics program' has flaws, but look at Pixelmator and iDraw for example, they have scale factor options that relate to the paper, and although I'm not impressed by them compared to your products, the printing is a lot more intuitive!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just trying to understand how to print in AD with any confidence in getting the correct output without wasting a ton of ink and paper!

I'm fairly new to AD and AP, but I am very impressed as I have been seeking out an Adobe alternative for some time now and your apps are the top of my list at the moment!

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Indeed I bought Affinity Designer already from the Mac App Store. Do you mean the Beta version is better than the one I bought?

 

Regards and thank you Matt.

Yes, but you need the MAS version in order for the beta to work according to what I have read here.  I went back and had a look at the MAS version print options, and they are indeed even more restrictive than the beta!

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Do you mean the Beta version is better than the one I bought?

 

The Beta version is the newest version that we are currently working on. We make a new one available every few weeks to get feedback on bugs and new features. So it is better in that it gets new features earlier, but they are sometimes half-baked, and it is worse in than it gets more bugs.

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  • Staff

Hi imacken,

 

Go to Spotlight (hold Command and press Space) and type printer and press enter. Now select your printer and at the bottom of the dialog is the default paper size to use. If you select A3 then go back into Designer and go to Print again it *should* work? Hopefully? The preview image shown is always correct - unlike some packages which don't honour the printable margins of your printer. If it shows correctly in the preview, it will be printing correctly.

 

As I said, I need to remove the system's 'Scale' box because it's causing confusion and replace it by our own on our own page in the print dialog - hopefully I can do this tomorrow, but we'll see how it goes...

 

Thanks,

Matt

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  • Staff

Hi imacken, I did test this on my machine and setting the default size to A3 did work for me, which is why I suggested it. Obviously we do need to add a special entry in the printer dialog to avoid all this confusion and I am looking at doing it right now :)

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