oversized documents

Jimm Grimm

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Oct 21, 2002, 10:26:13 PM10/21/02

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I can't get InDesign to print an 8.5x22" document onto 8.5x22" paper. This should be trivial: InDesign 2.0 says it can print documents up to 18 feet by 18 feet, and my Lexmark Z22 printer says it can print up to 18 feet long. But together they can't print 22 inches?!? Who's lying?
I tried 3 different printer drivers, and every conceivable combination of options from within InDesign and within printer properties (Windows XP, home edition). Anyone have any clues?

Thanks!

Jimm

Guy Smiley

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Oct 21, 2002, 10:51:06 PM10/21/02

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What exactly are you doing, and what exactly is happening?
-Mike Nitabach

Bob Levine

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Oct 22, 2002, 8:21:41 AM10/22/02

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You're not trying to print right to the edge of the paper are you?
Because you just can't do that.

Bob

Dave Saunders

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Oct 22, 2002, 9:09:17 AM10/22/02

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Did you use the Page Setup command in the Print dialogs to set up the paper size? Then, in the Print dialogs themselves, the paper size should say "Defined by Driver."

Dave

Jimm Grimm

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Oct 22, 2002, 9:49:44 PM10/22/02

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Thanks for all the responses! You guys are amazing!

I have 8.5"x22" paper, so in Adobe InDesign 2.0 I did File>New>Document... and specified 132p wide by 51p height, which is 8.5"x22" landscape. Everything looks great on the screen (I'm not trying to print all the way to the edge - a one inch margin would be fine). When I do File>Print... it only shows 8.5x11 of it will print (the rest is grayed out in the preview.) If I select Paper Size "Banner Letter (8.5 x 220 in)" in the Print > Setup pane, it doesn't help. If I attempt to print it, sure enough it only prints the first 8.5x11 inches, and then ejects the rest of the page.
If I go into Start>Settings>Printers and Faxes>Lexmark Z22 ... properties, and set the "Custom Paper Size" to 8.5x17 (the highest it will let me go, sure enough I can only print 8.5x17 inches of the page, and the rest is blank.
It seems like we could blame the printer driver for only going up to 17" long. And we could blame Adobe InDesign for not recognizing banner sized paper. After all, they say they can support 18 feet long, and so does the printer, so why doesn't Adobe use the banner mode to print any size up to 18 feet?
It looks like I had two possible ways to succeed but both failed. Can anyone think of any other ways, or anything else that could salvage either of these?
I tried tiling it but I still couldn't get it to print on the bottom end of the paper. Even if I did get this to sort of work, it would be a miracle if a seam didn't show up.

Thanks!

Jimm

Dominic Hurley

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Oct 23, 2002, 12:38:22 AM10/23/02

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If the printer driver for the Lexmark doesn't go higher than 17", you may be stuck. Can you download another driver?

Marco DeConno

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Oct 23, 2002, 12:51:27 PM10/23/02

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Couple of possible things to try:

1. Reinstall the driver that came with the printer - remove the others first. (you stated that you tried 3 different drivers, you might have confused the situation).

2. Try to print from another application (do a quick Photshop file at the size) and see if it's ID that has the problem.

3. Export to PDF and see if that file prints.

4. Decrease/Increase the length of the document (as a test), perhaps you've hit that "magic" number that doesn't print. (I have the same problem sometimes when it comes to rasterizing complex Illustrator files - bringing it up or down in dimensions sometimes does the trick).

It may just be the 8 1/2 and not the 22 that's causing the problem.