A4 and US Letter PDF Compatibility?

[Art Deco]

This is a great idea! I think it was a good move to compile the script. It's easy to use, and took me about thirty seconds from download to results.

I encourage others to contribute to the dataset - the more who contribute, the higher the level of confidence in the findings! The final result will be very useful for designers.

My results:

Printer: Canon Pixma iP1180

Width: 8.5 in >>> 215.899 mm
Height: 11.0 in >>> 279.4 mm
Left: 0.2516 in >>> 6.392 mm
Top: 0.1167 in >>> 2.963 mm
Right: 0.2483 in >>> 6.3076 mm
Bottom: 0.1983 in >>> 5.03766 mm

[SCEtoAUX]

I rounded to three decimal places.

Canon Pixma MG5220
Width 8.5 in >>> 215.9mm
Height 11.0 in >>> 279.4mm
Left 0.252 in >>> 6.392mm
Top 0.117 in >>> 2.963mm
Right 0.248 in >>> 6.308mm
Bottom 0.198 in >>> 5.038mm

Epson Stylus NX515
Width 8.5 in >>> 215.9mm
Height 11.0 in >>> 279.4mm
Left 0.117 in >>> 2.963mm
Top 0.117 in >>> 2.963mm
Right 0.117 in >>> 2.963mm
Bottom 0.117 in >>> 2.963mm

[papersmithforge]

Change the app slightly so that now when the results dialog box appears you can select the text and press Ctrl + C to copy it to your clipboard. This way people won't have to waste time transcribing the text. Also, it now rounds to three decimal places to avoid the extra text.

[Leif Ohlsson]

You've started something good here, PSF! - L.

[codex34]

Epson stylus D68
Width: 8.268 in. >>> 210.000 mm
Height: 11.693 in. >>> 297.000 mm
Left: 0.117 in. >>> 2.963 mm
Top: 0.117 in. >>> 2.963 mm
Right: 0.118 in. >>> 2.990 mm
Bottom: 0.118 in. >>> 2.995 mm
Spec says, Bottom margin is expanded to 3 mm when paper dimension is defined by using command (ESC (S and Remote “SN”), otherwise it is not expanded (12.5 mm)

Leif, your results are wrong? earlier in the thread you had 3mm all around, which is the spec on the c87/d88 but your results say it's 14.5m bottom margin and >6mm sides.

[Leif Ohlsson]

codex

No. If I format for D88 specifically, I get 3.5 mm all around. The 6.5 mm sides and 14.5 mm bottom is for "all printers".

I'll do another measurement with my printer turned on. I might have forgotten that last time... (stupid, stupid!)

No. I still get the same:

Width: 8,264 in. >>> 209,903 mm
Height: 11,694 in. >>> 297,039 mm
Left: 0,250 in. >>> 6,350 mm
Top: 0,250 in. >>> 6,350 mm
Right: 0,250 in. >>> 6,350 mm
Bottom: 0,569 in. >>> 14,464 mm

This I believe to be a fault in the program (or my handling of it, since others get appropriate figures). I know for sure that the Epson D88 will give you 3.5mm margins all around, by my earlier, manual, measurements. So pay no attention to this.

Leif

[codex34]

Oh that's ok, thought you might be posting for another printer.
I think what your getting there is a windows thing, the printimage object is settable as well as readable, so if you set the margins in one program, windows retains those margins until you set them again. Not entirely sure though.
You could try printing a full A4 blank image with photoshop and trying again see if it changes, probably won't though if you set the margins in the driver.
I'll dig out my universal 'print actual size' image, see if it's any use to you.

[papersmithforge]

Not to revive a possibly dead thread, but I wanted to thank you all for your contributions. Secondly, I've made some update/progress and rethought some things so I wanted to also apologize for letting the thread go untouched for a year. I was hoping to get a much larger data set but, not many people participated. Following are the conclusions made given the data provided.

On a US Letter sheet regardless of printing device the margins should be set at the following:

Top -> 9/32 in
Left -> 9/32 in
Right -> 17/32 in
Bottom -> 1/2 in

On an A4 size sheet the margins should be set as follows:

Top -> 7 mm
Left -> 8 mm
Right -> 7 mm
Bottom -> 30 mm

In both of these cases from your particular PDF program of choice, regardless of the sheet size you're given, you would print at 100% scale and the margins would take into account the print area that is available. Whether you're given an A4 or Letter sheet or whether you're printing onto an A4 or Letter sheet now becomes irrelevant.

Obviously, if you adjust the scale of your model this no longer holds true. For the sake of the curious you lose about 15% of the page on a Letter sheet and about 18% of the sheet on A4.

Furthermore, in the hopes that more people will participate I took the idea that I suggested to Leif about printing and physically measuring the page and incorporated it into a PDF. The reason I avoided this early on was for fear of confusion that people might measure incorrectly and other such human errors. However, given the points made by codex and Leif about the output of the program and printer drivers, it would seem that programmatic results should also be viewed with some scrutiny.

So what I've done is create two pdfs. One is done to A4 size, the other is done to Letter size. Each of the files contains two pages. Each of the pages contain 4 rulers on the margin. One page uses a ruler that measures 32nds of an inch, the other page uses a ruler that measures millimeters. If you print it front and back you have both units available to you and you'll only use one page.

So how do the pages work? Simple, as stipulated before you need to print from your PDF program at 100% scale and select the appropriate page size (A4 for the A4 pdf and Letter for the Letter pdf). Your printer will not print the entire ruler, instead it will print whatever it is physically able to print. Your job is basically to see which is the first tick mark that appears at each margin.

I will list my printer as an example, programmatically the margins were determined to be 0.040 on the top, 0.25 on the left and right, and 0.460 on the bottom. These measurements also agree with the technical data supplied by the printer manufacturer for a Letter size page. Lastly, when I printed the Letter PDF on my printer (both front and back to get both rulers in millimeters and inches) I could visually verify that the top margin was given as 2/32 of an inch, the left and right margins were 9/32 of an inch, and the bottom margin was 15/32 of an inch. Flipping the page over it also agreed that the top margin was 2 mm, the left and right were 7 mm, and the bottom was 12 mm. Thus, I can make the conclusion that everything I've learned and observed agrees and therefore in my case I have more than reasonable results.

Obviously those of you who are wary of downloading a foreign script and executing it shouldn't. However, you can now still contribute by simply printing and taking note of your results. Assuming you don't perform a misread I would assume the physical measurements to be more reliable than those produced by the script.

Keep in mind, what you're looking for is the first visible tick mark closest to the respective margin, NOT the first number you can read. On my bottom margin for instance I can see the number 14, but the first tick mark I can see is the one that belongs to 15, so THAT is my measurement.

If I receive more substantial data I'll update once again, but for now I'll work with the ones that I've determined programatically. Thanks again everyone.

[jagolden01]

Just stay at 7" x 10" and it'll be fine. Simple as that.

[Leif Ohlsson]

@ Papersmithforge (what an awkward handle - any first name or such, in a signature or so?):

That is a really useful and simple device. Thank you!! Have used, will save. Result is, for my printer, 3.5 mm all around. Confirmed.

@ Jagolden01 (what an awkward handle - any first name or such, in a signature or so?):

7" x 10" = 17.8 x 25.4 cm. Which surely is fine and safe for printing on all kinds of printers. For inkjet printing you could go up to 19.7 x 26.6 cm, which works for both A4 and Letter. On inkjet printers.

Thanks for keeping this discussion alive.

Leif