Re: Evince/Adobe printing adds margins and scales down the score

[David Wright]

On Wed 17 Aug 2016 at 11:33:58 (+0200), Federico Bruni wrote:
> Hi folks
> 
> I've tried printing a score with Evince and I see that it adds
> margins on left, right, top and bottom and scales down the score
> size to fit it on the page (line-width=17,40 cm). Is it a known
> issue?
> 
> lpr prints exactly what I see on the screen (line-width=19 cm).
> 
> Adobe also adds some margins and scales down the score, slightly
> less than Evince (line-width=17,90 cm)

In my book, that's a good argument not to print directly from
applications but to a PDF queue instead, then print the PDF file
directly with something you can trust, ie lpr or lp.

I use a patched¹ copy of testpage.tex to calibrate the margins imposed
by the printer hardware (and its CUPS driver), and a bash function
that displays a nonce copy of any PDF file with a corresponding frame
superimposed on it, so I know in advance of printing what I'm going to
lose around the edges. My Margins-*.ily files take account of this.
This test function is essential if you're stuck with US paper sizes.

> If I give a score book to a printer, what should I expect? :-)

You should discuss how the printer wants your output (presumably
as PDF files) delivered to them. Their requirements and flexibilty
vary.

When I have A6 booklets printed with fairly small margins, I send
A4 pages which have pairs of A6 pages in collated order (1,20 19,2
etc) duplicated at the top and bottom of each A4 sheet so that the
gutter will be exactly the right size. The printers in Cirencester
like that to be done for them. I also send a crib with A6 pages in
the correct order, because my booklet's pages are unnumbered.

OTOH sending A5 booklet files to my Swindon printer in that form
would be a waste of time as the first thing they do is separate
each page and then size and place them themselves. The margins in
my file are irrelevant to them.

One thing you do need to remember to discuss is where any blank
pages appear (assuming you don't want to insert "this page
intentionally left blank"). There's a tendency for printers to
prefer leaving page 2 blank rather than the last page.

But there's always lots to discuss in terms of paper quality,
weight, brightness, colour etc anyway. Margin size is but a
small part.

¹the patch is from
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/139951/pdflatex-testpage-produces-wrong-margins-for-a4paper
and I'm not sure about being able to distribute a modified file.
However, I document the patch within the printed output, as attached.

Cheers,
David.

patch.png
Description: PNG image