booklet printing problem

Jeff_Shrowder · March 28, 2013, 2:33am

Another problem I have with LO (ver. 4.0.1.2) is that when I try to print a booklet - let's say a 4 page A5 booklet - on A4 it prints pages 1 and 4 in landscape across the portrait-oriented A4 page rather than along it. Pages 2 and 3 are similarly affected.

The settings I use are the same as for LO 3.5. The layout image in the Print dialogue box is the same as in 3.5 so, everything being equal, I should get the right result. But I don't.

At the moment my work-around is to export to PDF and do a booklet print using Adobe Reader (which Evince can't do). This is less than satisfactory on two counts. One, LibreOffice should do it 'out of the box', as it has in the past' and two, Adobe Reader creates larger margins all round, making the resulting print smaller than originally set.

Where am I going wrong? Is there some hidden box I haven't ticked? Is this a bug?
Please help.

Jeff

marcpare · March 28, 2013, 5:04am

Hi Jeff,

Another problem I have with LO (ver. 4.0.1.2) is that when I try to
print a booklet - let's say a 4 page A5 booklet - on A4 it prints pages
1 and 4 in landscape across the portrait-oriented A4 page rather than
along it. Pages 2 and 3 are similarly affected.

The settings I use are the same as for LO 3.5. The layout image in the
Print dialogue box is the same as in 3.5 so, everything being equal, I
should get the right result. But I don't.

At the moment my work-around is to export to PDF and do a booklet print
using Adobe Reader (which Evince can't do). This is less than
satisfactory on two counts. One, LibreOffice should do it 'out of the
box', as it has in the past' and two, Adobe Reader creates larger
margins all round, making the resulting print smaller than originally set.

Where am I going wrong? Is there some hidden box I haven't ticked? Is
this a bug?
Please help.

Jeff

Try this:

* choose Print
* choose Properties
* choose device
* Printer Language type -- you may need to re-adjust the type to suit your printer. You may have to experiment with this until you get it right.

Let us know if this works.

Cheers,

Marc

marcpare · March 28, 2013, 9:21am

Hi Jeff,

I'm responding to the list as I think you probably wanted to answer there and share comments there.

Jeff_Shrowder · March 28, 2013, 11:22am

On 03/28/2013 08:21 PM, Marc Paré wrote:

Hi Jeff,

I'm responding to the list as I think you probably wanted to answer there and share
comments there.

============

On 03/28/2013 04:03 PM, Marc Paré wrote:

>
> Try this:
>
> * choose Print
> * choose Properties
> * choose device
> * Printer Language type -- you may need to re-adjust the type to suit your printer.
> You may have to experiment with this until you get it right.

Thank you, Marc,

There was no difference in the output. Each choice produced a perfect PDF replica of
the ODT file but Adobe Reader imposes wider margins when it prints to a hard copy.

If I could get LO to print in the right orientation when I ask it to print a booklet
I wouldn't need to mess around with PDF format

Jeff

============

I tried to print a series of test pages (8 pages in length) and then sent to print
with the "brochure" choice tagged. As you pointed out I got the same results as you
described in your original post. HOWEVER, I then reprinted a second time and for some
reason the print went according to what I would expect and the booklet was printed
without a problem.

I tried to replicate this again, but I could not do it. I tried different settings,
but again, could not reproduce it.

One explanation could be that the LibreOffice profile may have something to do with
this (maybe erasing it or forcing a new one by re-labelling your profile with another
name). I am not sure.

BTW ... I installed the v.4.0.2.1 build of LibreOffice as I am also testing it for
bugs. This is the version I test tried my file. I am not sure if this would correct
the problem.

Cheers,

Marc

==========

Marc,

Thank you for your suggestions. I've had no success.
What is the LibreOffice profile and what is its function?

I haven't found a way to change the margins when printing a booklet in acroread. The default margins are bigger than I want.

At the rate I am going I might remove 4.0.1.2 and revert to 3.5 - but that would be to admit defeat

Cheers,

Jeff

Regina · March 28, 2013, 12:54pm

Hi Jeff,

Jeff Shrowder schrieb:

Another problem I have with LO (ver. 4.0.1.2) is that when I try to
print a booklet - let's say a 4 page A5 booklet - on A4 it prints pages
1 and 4 in landscape across the portrait-oriented A4 page rather than
along it. Pages 2 and 3 are similarly affected.

The settings I use are the same as for LO 3.5. The layout image in the
Print dialogue box is the same as in 3.5 so, everything being equal, I
should get the right result. But I don't.

"Same setting" does not help us, because we do not know your setting. Booklet printing works for me, so perhaps I describe my way and you can compare it to your way.

Precondition: You document is written in A5. Your printer can duplex printing.
1. In normal view use LO print dialog via File > Print.
2. Click on printer properties to get the dialog of your printer driver. Set your printer to use DIN A4 paper. In finishing set the orientation to landscape, and enable duplex printing on printer. OK.
3. In LO print dialog click on tab 'Page Layout' and there on option 'brochure'.
4. OK to print

If your printer cannot duplex printing you need to turn the sheets manually. The printer manual should have a guide for that. For me it would be in addition to the settings above:
Step 1: Set 'front page' in drop down 'Includes' on the tab 'Page Layout'. Print.
Step 2: Put the sheets back into the tray.
Step 3: Set 'back page' in drop down 'Includes' on the tab 'Page Layout' and mark 'In reverse page order' on tab 'General'. Print.

Kind regards
Regina

Tom_Davies · March 28, 2013, 1:57pm

Hi
Perhaps a compromise?
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel

Have both! :) Then when the 3.5.6 comes out you will be ready to test-drive it straight away! :) The 4.0.2 comes out soon too so it might be possible to find an alpha-test version if you help with QA for a bit which might also be a good way of getting something done about your problem more quickly.

Regards from

Tom

krackedpress · March 28, 2013, 2:15pm

The Margins issue might be part of the "page scale" option - i.e. "shrink to page size" and "fit to page size" type of options. I have the same problem with brochures if I do not turn that option off.

John_King · March 28, 2013, 4:19pm

Hi Jeff,

Jeff Shrowder schrieb:

Another problem I have with LO (ver. 4.0.1.2) is that when I try to
print a booklet - let's say a 4 page A5 booklet - on A4 it prints pages
1 and 4 in landscape across the portrait-oriented A4 page rather than
along it. Pages 2 and 3 are similarly affected.

The settings I use are the same as for LO 3.5. The layout image in the
Print dialogue box is the same as in 3.5 so, everything being equal, I
should get the right result. But I don't.

"Same setting" does not help us, because we do not know your setting. Booklet printing works for me, so perhaps I describe my way and you can compare it to your way.

Precondition: You document is written in A5. Your printer can duplex printing.

That's interesting. I've always prepared my documents in A4 (since some of my collaborators want an A4 rather than a A5 booklet) and then printed in brochure format, which gives me 2 A5 on a landscape A4.

1. In normal view use LO print dialog via File > Print.
2. Click on printer properties to get the dialog of your printer driver. Set your printer to use DIN A4 paper. In finishing set the orientation to landscape, and enable duplex printing on printer. OK.

There's also a setting in my printer properties to choose short-edge' or 'long-edge' binding for duplex. Short edge works for me.

3. In LO print dialog click on tab 'Page Layout' and there on option 'brochure'.
4. OK to print

If your printer cannot duplex printing you need to turn the sheets manually. The printer manual should have a guide for that. For me it would be in addition to the settings above:
Step 1: Set 'front page' in drop down 'Includes' on the tab 'Page Layout'. Print.
Step 2: Put the sheets back into the tray.
Step 3: Set 'back page' in drop down 'Includes' on the tab 'Page Layout' and mark 'In reverse page order' on tab 'General'. Print.

Kind regards
Regina

Other than the above A4 difference, this has worked in LO 3.6 and LO 4

John

Jeff_Shrowder · March 28, 2013, 7:55pm

Hmmm. Gives me the idea to install LO 3.5.2 (Win) in Wine on my Linux machine.

Jeff

Tom_Davies · March 28, 2013, 8:07pm

HI
Nooooooooo!

I think that turns out to be a Pita and doesn't work particularly well but maybe something has changed in the last couple of years. Might be interesting. Hmm, i'm intrigued. Go for it. lol
Regards from
Tom

Jeff_Shrowder · March 28, 2013, 8:12pm

Regina,

Hi Jeff,

Jeff Shrowder schrieb:

Another problem I have with LO (ver. 4.0.1.2) is that when I try to
print a booklet - let's say a 4 page A5 booklet - on A4 it prints pages
1 and 4 in landscape across the portrait-oriented A4 page rather than
along it. Pages 2 and 3 are similarly affected.

The settings I use are the same as for LO 3.5. The layout image in the
Print dialogue box is the same as in 3.5 so, everything being equal, I
should get the right result. But I don't.

"Same setting" does not help us, because we do not know your setting.Booklet printing
works for me, so perhaps I describe my way and you can compare it to
your way.

Precondition: You document is written in A5. Your printer can duplex printing.
1. In normal view use LO print dialog via File > Print.
2. Click on printer properties to get the dialog of your printer driver. Set your
printer to use DIN A4 paper. In finishing set the orientation to landscape, and
enable duplex printing on printer. OK.
3. In LO print dialog click on tab 'Page Layout' and there on option 'brochure'.
4. OK to print

If your printer cannot duplex printing you need to turn the sheets manually. The
printer manual should have a guide for that. For me it would be in addition to the
settings above:
Step 1: Set 'front page' in drop down 'Includes' on the tab 'Page Layout'. Print.
Step 2: Put the sheets back into the tray.
Step 3: Set 'back page' in drop down 'Includes' on the tab 'Page Layout' and mark 'In
reverse page order' on tab 'General'. Print.

Thank you for trying to help me solve this problem.
My printer cannot do duplex. I have for many years (with OO and more recently LO) successfully used the print method you describe above. I use it with my recently installed LO 4.0.1.2 and have this terrible problem.

King regards,

Jeff

Jeff_Shrowder · March 28, 2013, 8:45pm

Nah, not serious really But I did have such a setup several years ago. Can't remember why, but my recollection is that it worked/played OK.

Jeff

marcpare · March 28, 2013, 9:08pm

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your suggestions. I've had no success.
What is the LibreOffice profile and what is its function?

I haven't found a way to change the margins when printing a booklet in
acroread. The default margins are bigger than I want.

At the rate I am going I might remove 4.0.1.2 and revert to 3.5 - but
that would be to admit defeat

Cheers,

Jeff

Note: the LibreOffice profile holds your name, address, email etc and all of the other settings that you will find in Tools->Options. It will also store extra stuff like the extensions, clipart (that you may have added) ... In short all that you have done to LibreOffice to customize it for your own use.

mcmurchy1917-libreof · March 29, 2013, 9:06am

I seem to remember I had a problem with priinting brochures a short while ago
from within Libreoffice and I also seem to remember that Adobe Reader was OK, it
all started happening after an upgrade of my system, I use Slackware.

Changing the print driver in CUPs fixed it for me.

Iain

Jeff_Shrowder · March 29, 2013, 9:11am

Marc,

Thank you for your persistence. Unfortunately, having tried your suggestion above, I don't think we are any further advanced Perhaps one minor difference is that the landscape printing is now flush with the left margin rather than centred on the portrait page.

Let me know the name of the file that you would like examine and I can send it to you.

Regards,

Jeff

marcpare · March 29, 2013, 10:24am

Just one of your booklet files will suffice. Is this behaviour the same for all of your booklets? If so, then it is probably of no use to test-try any of them. I thought that the problem was with only one file in particular.

Just send me any file, and I will check to see if there is a problem on my system.

Could you also let us know specifically on which system you are working on?

OS and version:
LibreOffice version:
Printer name and model:

Perhaps someone else with the same model could chime in and test-try one of your files to see if they get the same results.

Cheers,

Marc

Jeff_Shrowder · March 29, 2013, 12:20pm

Marc,

OS: Scientific Linux 6.3, Kernel Linux 2.6.32-279.51.el6.i686, GNOME 2.28.2
Hardware: Memory 1.8 GiB
Processor: AMD Athlon XP2800+ (yes, I know, old machine!!)
LibreOffice: Version 4.0.1.2 (Build ID: 84102822e3d61eb989ddd325abf1ac077904985)
Printers: Brother HL-2170W and Brother Hl-3045CN

I sent a file to Marc to play with (test). If anyone else with either of these printers can help solve this problem I can send a copy of the file.

Cheers,

Jeff

marcpare · March 29, 2013, 1:51pm

Hi Jeff,

Marc,

OS: Scientific Linux 6.3, Kernel Linux 2.6.32-279.51.el6.i686, GNOME 2.28.2
Hardware: Memory 1.8 GiB
Processor: AMD Athlon XP2800+ (yes, I know, old machine!!)
LibreOffice: Version 4.0.1.2 (Build ID:
84102822e3d61eb989ddd325abf1ac077904985)
Printers: Brother HL-2170W and Brother Hl-3045CN

I sent a file to Marc to play with (test). If anyone else with either of
these printers can help solve this problem I can send a copy of the file.

Cheers,

Jeff

Thanks for the file. My setup:

OS: MageiaLinux2
KDE: 4.8.5
LibreOffice: 4.0.2.1 (testing it out but should still work like 4.0.1.2)
Printer: Brother HL-2040

Seems to work fine on my system with this file. Make sure to change your printer device to:

Print->General->Properties->Device->Printer Language -> PostScript Level 3

I think that this is where you are having problems. Do not use the PDF as your printer device. I believe that the Brother printer setup in LibreOffice defaults to the PDF device.

Cheers,

Marc

krackedpress · March 29, 2013, 1:52pm

I use Ubuntu and almost every time there is a "printer package" upgrade, like CUPS, I have to reinstall some of my printers again to get them to work properly again.

I do not use the Adobe Reader on Linux. So I do not have its issue of margin changes. I do a lot of printing to CUPS-PDF or doPDF [Windows] and then printing it out to the paper printers. I use that or Export to PDF for LO as well. When printing a PDF file for brochures and other formatted page like that, I must make sure the "shrink to page" or "fit to page" option on my paper printer driver is turned off. That will stop the extra margins from being added.

I have 3 duplex printers, but my laser printer does not do well with more than a 2 page sheet for duplexing, so I do the manual duplexing a lot of times.

Jeff_Shrowder · March 31, 2013, 10:33am

Marc and all who have offered assistance in this saga, I am admitting defeat

At one stage late in my struggles I thought I saw a glimmer of hope - I printed an A4 landscape page of text. However, the inability to successfully print an A5 booklet on A4 landscape remained.

Having expended way more time, anxiety, frustration, paper, toner and energy than any normal person would I have reluctantly removed LibreOffice 4.0.1.2 and installed ver 3.4.5, the stable version in the Scientific Linux repository. Whatever else it may or may not do it is printing booklets successfully.

I remain committed to LibreOffice and regret that I could neither crack the problem or offer enough useful information for other willing helpers to find a solution.

Cheers,

Jeff