The 22" HACK! Extending print area on cheap printers

[OldSchoolDM]

So I recently had to store my good printer away for awhile and bought a "throwaway" inkjet printer to handle my temporary needs.
I got the Cannon MG2400 series something or other. You know, one of those $50 "all in one" that costs less than replacement ink for it.

Anyway, I wanted to print on some cardstock to scratch my paper moddlin' itch (and to support the Elven Tower and Walls kickstarter...)

But, as I made the cutfiles and printed them out, I discovered that the print area was too small for the model - the bottom 1/2" or so was clipped off.

I was forced to consider either scaling the model smaller, hacking it to pieces, or finding a way to increase the print area.

Then it hit me! What if I made the page longer and told the printer it was longer paper?

So here's what I did - I made a 22" piece of cardstock by taping a second sheet to the end of the first.

---------
|       |
|       |
|sheet 1|
|       |
|       |
--------- <--- Scotch tape to the back (non-printing side) here.
|       |
|       |
|sheet 2|
|       |
|       |
---------

Then, when I print, I tell the printer driver that it's 8.5" by 14" paper, even though I'm only printing the original 8.5"x11" image on it unscaled.

The interesting reason this doesn't break, is that the paper-eject mechanism is end-sensor based, and so keeps feeding the paper through when the page is finished printing.

Then I just separate the pages and bam! I have a full length print area on a 11" long sheet!

The model linked above was printed using this method, but your mileage may vary - I do not warrantee that this will work with every cheap printer, but it's worth a try!

I hope you find this useful. For me, it means I can build during my short hiatus from having my full studio up and running...

[eatcrow2]

Great tip!! Thanks for posting..

[Chris Knowlton]

Neat idea. I'll have to try it.

Chris

[3Turner]

Interesting tip. Since you have the Canon printer, could telling the printer you are printing a photo and to print "borderless" have the same effect on a 8.5"x11" sheet?

[OldSchoolDM]

Originally Posted by 3Turner

Interesting tip. Since you have the Canon printer, could telling the printer you are printing a photo and to print "borderless" have the same effect on a 8.5"x11" sheet?

I can't find a "borderless" option in the various print dialogs. If you could share a screenshot that shows where it is, I'd be happy to try it. This hack is quite awkward. :-)

I suspect that printers that don't offer borderless have the paper feed place too far from the print head...

[SCEtoAUX]

When Borderless Printing is chosen the graphic is usually distorted to fill in the entire page so the scale would be changed.
Here is a site showing a print dialog box that claims to be for a MG 2400.
Canon : PIXMA Manuals : MG2400 series : Quick Setup tab Description
The graphic shown is for Standard printing settings.

Here is a grab from a 5200 series printer with Photo Printing and Borderless chosen which appears to be available for a MG 4200 also according to that web site.


Don't know if you can get that particular dialog box to show even though the web site does state MG 4200.

[3Turner]

Doug beat me to it.

Originally Posted by SCEtoAUX

When Borderless Printing is chosen the graphic is usually distorted to fill in the entire page so the scale would be changed.

I don't think that would occur all the time; if at all. The white space around the outer border of the image would also be included in the borderless printing. All the dialog is telling the printer is to not cut off anything that may be present in the file. I would hope that borderless printing would not stretch the image....but hey, that is something that can be tested.

[OldSchoolDM]

My MG2400 doesn't display that dialog - perhaps it applies to the MG4200 only?

[SCEtoAUX]

Probably does mean for a 4200. That info on the site does seem a bit more than what a 2400 can apparently do.

[3Turner]

When you hit print in your PDF program of choice, click on "Advanced" or "Properties" to access the printer specific dialog box. For me in Adobe Acrobat it was "Properties" to bring up the Canon box.