HP 7150, border problem

[Jay]

Hi,

I've spent an ungodly amount of time with tech support at HP to find out
that my hp photosmart 7150 automatically adds a half inch border to the top
of each and every document it prints. This isn't a problem when using HP's
tabbed 4x6 photo paper, but it's a nasty PITA when trying to use HP's 8.5x11
photo paper. Or, for that matter, any paper that isn't tabbed; the printer's
driver atutomatically adds that half inch.

This screws up text documents, photo paper by other companies, HP's own
8.5x11 paper. I'm quite peeved by this, especially since no where in HP's
documentation, marketing info, or web site does HP mention this "feature".
Had I known, I wouldn't have bought the printer. In fact, the tech I talked
to at HP this morning had never heard of this before. He had to ask his
supervisor about it (and said supervisor refused to talk to me). It's one
thing to be locked into their $$$ print cartridges and quite another to be
locked into their 4x6 paper unless I either slice 'n' dice the printed
photos (in which case they'll be a non-standard size) or edit every single
photo I want to print. Quick print my butt.

Is there any way around this? I can live with a half inch border around
everything I print (I like photos with borders), but the uneven borders are
too much.

FWIW, HP's response was of the line, "Live with it. For your hassle we'll
send a 20-pack of tabbed paper."

Specs:

Windows 2000 Pro (service packed, patched until current)
512 megs RAM
XP 1700+ CPU

One last quick question ... I've worked in computer sales ... worked in IT
.... used PCs for 20 years ... and I've never come across another printer
that does this. Has anyone ever seen another?

 

[Trev]

Hi,

I've spent an ungodly amount of time with tech support at HP to find out
that my hp photosmart 7150 automatically adds a half inch border to the top
of each and every document it prints. This isn't a problem when using HP's
tabbed 4x6 photo paper, but it's a nasty PITA when trying to use HP's 8.5x11
photo paper. Or, for that matter, any paper that isn't tabbed; the printer's
driver atutomatically adds that half inch.

This screws up text documents, photo paper by other companies, HP's own
8.5x11 paper. I'm quite peeved by this, especially since no where in HP's
documentation, marketing info, or web site does HP mention this "feature".
Had I known, I wouldn't have bought the printer. In fact, the tech I talked
to at HP this morning had never heard of this before. He had to ask his
supervisor about it (and said supervisor refused to talk to me). It's one
thing to be locked into their $$$ print cartridges and quite another to be
locked into their 4x6 paper unless I either slice 'n' dice the printed
photos (in which case they'll be a non-standard size) or edit every single
photo I want to print. Quick print my butt.

Is there any way around this? I can live with a half inch border around
everything I print (I like photos with borders), but the uneven borders are
too much.

FWIW, HP's response was of the line, "Live with it. For your hassle we'll
send a 20-pack of tabbed paper."

Specs:

Windows 2000 Pro (service packed, patched until current)
512 megs RAM
XP 1700+ CPU

One last quick question ... I've worked in computer sales ... worked in IT
... used PCs for 20 years ... and I've never come across another printer
that does this. Has anyone ever seen another?

Nearly all printers have minimum margins As they need to hold the paper
square whilst its printed And I believe they only mention borderless 6 x
4
Now they latest claim borderless A4 but I don't have one so I can not
say

HP Readme for 5550
A4
left and right margins 0.134 in.
top .07in.
bottom .46 in

 

[Jay]

Nearly all printers have minimum margins As they need to hold the paper
square whilst its printed And I believe they only mention borderless 6 x
4
Now they latest claim borderless A4 but I don't have one so I can not
say

HP Readme for 5550
A4
left and right margins 0.134 in.
top .07in.
bottom .46 in

Hi,

It's not that I'm kvetching about the minimum border of the 7150, but that
its driver adds a full half inch to whatever border you've already set in
the software. For instance, on an 8x11 text page with 1 inch margins, this
printer will add an additional half inch to the bottom -- even though it's
clearly not needed for the printer to hold the paper.

You can see some examples in this review:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/hp7350_pg3.html

 

[Trev]

Hi,

It's not that I'm kvetching about the minimum border of the 7150, but that
its driver adds a full half inch to whatever border you've already set in
the software. For instance, on an 8x11 text page with 1 inch margins, this
printer will add an additional half inch to the bottom -- even though it's
clearly not needed for the printer to hold the paper.

You can see some examples in this review:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/hp7350_pg3.html

That does not say anything about 8x11 but anyhow In the properties for
my printer on the layout tab is a borderless button. This opens another
dialogue where 6x4 with tab or 6x4 without can be selected. And a few
more. Might be worth a look

 

[Smith]

You cant do full bleed borderless with a 7150 only with 4 X 6 and then you
have to trim the tab off
You can print to A4 with VERY small borders except the trailing edge but
even that should be mininmal

 

[Michael Kilpatrick]

Hi,

I've spent an ungodly amount of time with tech support at HP to find out
that my hp photosmart 7150 automatically adds a half inch border to the top
of each and every document it prints. This isn't a problem when using HP's
tabbed 4x6 photo paper, but it's a nasty PITA when trying to use HP's 8.5x11
photo paper. Or, for that matter, any paper that isn't tabbed; the printer's
driver atutomatically adds that half inch.

I can sympathise with you. I just posted a message on a similar problem
with my 5100 Laserjet. My A4 printed music comes out skewed to the left
on the page, or skewed to the right if I print with the "rotate 180"
option. The margins should be identical left and right. I get the same
problem printing from MS Word.

This is a real problem for me because I also print the same music,
depending on how many pages, as 2-page spreads on A3. The result is that
one sheet of A4 does not come out the same as the two halves of the A3
spread. The margins on the A3 spread are almost symmetric, but I have
this really narrow left margin and wide right margin on the A4 sheets.

If I am printing a 3-page part by taping an A4 sheet to the side of
a 2-page A3 spread, I get three pages of music each with different
margins! It's really pissing me off. I'm sending some print samples
to HP because their helpline staff (here in the UK) couldn't help
or understand what I was trying to say!

Michael

 

[Trev]

I can sympathise with you. I just posted a message on a similar problem
with my 5100 Laserjet. My A4 printed music comes out skewed to the left
on the page, or skewed to the right if I print with the "rotate 180"
option. The margins should be identical left and right. I get the same
problem printing from MS Word.

This is a real problem for me because I also print the same music,
depending on how many pages, as 2-page spreads on A3. The result is that
one sheet of A4 does not come out the same as the two halves of the A3
spread. The margins on the A3 spread are almost symmetric, but I have
this really narrow left margin and wide right margin on the A4 sheets.

If I am printing a 3-page part by taping an A4 sheet to the side of
a 2-page A3 spread, I get three pages of music each with different
margins! It's really pissing me off. I'm sending some print samples
to HP because their helpline staff (here in the UK) couldn't help
or understand what I was trying to say!

Michael

I don't do A3 so this might not work But there is a application called
Fineprint 2000 that can intercept print instruction and print as 2 up to
a page and also booklet's.
The later I use to print web pages (tutorials) as a A5 book instead of
sheets of A4 they have a trial download. You may then be able to print 3
pages on to one sheet of A3 as page 1, Front cover 2 and 3 inside or add
a front cover to the print job to get 1and 2 inside and 3 on the back.
I originally tried it when I upgraded to XP and my 720 was no longer
able to print both sides.
www.fineprint.com

 

[Michael Kilpatrick]

I don't do A3 so this might not work But there is a application called
Fineprint 2000 that can intercept print instruction and print as 2 up to
a page and also booklet's.
The later I use to print web pages (tutorials) as a A5 book instead of
sheets of A4 they have a trial download. You may then be able to print 3
pages on to one sheet of A3 as page 1, Front cover 2 and 3 inside or add
a front cover to the print job to get 1and 2 inside and 3 on the back.
I originally tried it when I upgraded to XP and my 720 was no longer
able to print both sides.

Well, that's not really a solution, because the problem lies when I
print a single sheet of A4. I want to print single-sided only, to make
a long single-sided paper of however many pages are necessary,
comprising A3 spreads and single sheets of A4 on the end if an odd
number of pages.

The Sibelius music software prints the 2-page A3 spreads already.
The problem lies in the printed areas not being centred on the paper
by the printer on a single A4 sheet! If I send
a page to Fineprint and then print it from there I get the same
asymmetry: a wider right margin and narrower left margin.


Michael

 

[Trev]

Ya I'm with you now you want a 3 page sheet so that you don't have to
turn over

 

[Michael Kilpatrick]

Ya I'm with you now you want a 3 page sheet so that you don't have to
turn over

Yep, that's right. You can probably see how the worst case is a
3-page sheet of music with all 3 pages having left and right
margins different from each other! You fold these multipage
spreads to make an A4 "concertina".

It's all a real pain. I've found that the closest fix is
rather messy, but works:

I set the page margins (within the Sibelius music software)
to 8 units for the L and 12 for R margin of right hand
pages, and 10/11 for L/R margins of left hand pages.
These odd margins seem to compensate for the printer's lack of
symmetry when printing a 2-page A3 spread.

Single pages of A4 are printed using the margins that are
applied to right hand pages of spreads. However, if I set the
printer driver to rotate the print 180 degrees, I can get the
erroneous extra margin on the left side, not the right. So,
because my page setup has the 12 unit R margin and 8 unit
L margin, this more or less offsets the margin skew
introduced by the printer!

I had to approach these figures by trial and error. It's
hardly what I call a "solution", though. It stinks.
It only works because I can print the A4 sheet upside down
to reverse the printer's offset.

Of course, to make it worse, if I put A4 paper in the lower
tray in which I usually put the A3 paper, the margin comes
out slightly different to that on the A4 paper from the
upper feeder tray!

Michael

 

[Jay]

Hi everyone,

I've found an imperfect solution. While wool-gathering last night, it
occured to me that my problem was with the driver, and modern software made
for modern OSs using the driver. Digging around in my stack of old software,
I found Corel Draw 7 and installed PhotoPaint. Lo and behold ... it created
an unwieldly print file (115 megs versus the 5 or 6 megs for a print using
modern software) and god-awful colours in HP's preview, but it printed out
8.5x11 photos without the extra half inch on the trailing edge.

First thing I noticed was that the large size showed the limitations of my
camera (a 2 megapixel Canon). Second thing was that, all things considered,
some pics printed out quite nicely. Third thing was that there is a use for
old software.

Thanks for all the help and ideas!

Jason