T&L Publications

I am needing to be able to print out schematics. They are sometimes in jpg format. They are larger than normal size (8.5"x11") paper.

I've tried print screen and tried a few free programs that are supposed to be used to make banners etc. The idea is to spread out the image over several sheets of paper.

All I can get on the printout is a bits & pieces. Looks like someone tried to use a copier that was running out of toner.

I've been printing other things OK. My printer is HP PSC500, a little old but should do the job.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Hi there,


If you dont have too many to print out, you can do it manually using
Paint. You would open the file in Paint and then divide the pic up
into maybe four pieces, and then print out each piece individually.

Interesting idea however, and something i may want to have too
so i am thinking about writing a program to do this with either
jpg, gif, or bmp files. The program would break up the pic based
on some maximum dimension, such as width. Any width over
say 1600 pixels would be broken into two or more sections and
written to individual files. The individual files could then be printed
one at a time.
If you cant find anything else perhaps i'll throw together a small
program to do this. From a programming standpoint this isnt
too hard to do so it shouldnt take more than a few hours to produce
something.
I would need to know if you are running XP or a previous Windows
op sys first however.

Oldtechie,

Most printers are capable of a maximum custom paper size of 8.5 x22
before choking, making fanfold paper (remember THAT stuff?) minus the
tractor tabs (2 sheets) a viable solution. If your schematic is over either
of these dimensions you will have to split it into sections.

To get an idea of your printer margins, go to a "word" program such as
WordPad or, better yet, Microsoft Word or equivalent. Go to your page
setup and set all margins to 0, and when the warning box pops up, hit
enter to tell it to automatically adjust the margins for you. Subtract these
dimensions from your paper size and you'll know exactly how wide/high
you can go.

From your initial post, it sounds like you are having a similar problem to
what had cropped up at work, our image program has the index card
setting "stuck" in it's print setup. You might want to check all your printer
settings, both in your programs and, if you are using Windows, your
default system printer settings. You may end up having to set your
defaults to what you want before even starting your image program(s).
If you have a similar problem, set all printer settings, in both the system
printer and the programs, to the desired dimensions. That way, there are
no conflicts as all setups are exactly the same. Then try to print using the
banner method again, making sure you select the Banner option in the
printer setup.

If you still have problems with the banner method, try a picture of of your
maximum calculated size, as described above. To make it quick on your
printer, use Paint, set it's size accordingly and draw a border around the
edge. If this prints out correctly, you'll probably have to cut the image up
into the correct size pieces.

Hope this explains some of the possibilities.

Good luck,
CeaSaR

Quick Tip,
Send the document off to the local Staples Print Center. They can print almost any reasonable size, quickly and not too expensive.
You can even send the document via the net to save one trip.
We were going to invest in a plotter but considering the dry/dead cartridge issues related to infrequent use,
Staples is our cost effective alternative for the few large drawings we need to do.

Len

Sorry I did not come back and post. I have no idea what my final fix for this was. I am old and probably forgot that I had posted the question here... Not sure what I was working on at the time.

Thanks for your responses...

You should be able to print any PDF by changing the paper size on your printer.
I just printed a full sheet PDF to a 4 x 5 card stock size.
The question is...Will you be able to read it that small?
Good luck

@ Lenp
I'm sure you are correct. I did not intend to restart an old thread. I'm sure originally my problem was trying to print out over several sheets of 8.5" x 11" paper in order to make them easy to read and mark up.

Used to be you could select banner, but it looks like most printer dialogs have removed that option.

Even though I have B&W and Color, 36" wide by however long the roll is available at work, I'm still old school and like to open it up in paint, cut out 8"x10.5" rectangles and stitch them together after I use something like WORD (all borders @ 0.25") to get a good paste-n-print. But that's just me.

If you don't like the new versions of Paint, you can go to the Win-Aero site and download the Win7 classic paint. Biggest thing that gives you back is the Zoom function. Actually, its available on Win7Games site.

Schematic creation is an Art in itself. The way the author breaks up subcircuits, uses off page connectors and hierarchical features all impact readability. I prefer large sheets with lots of components even if it prints poorly at letter size, it can be looked at any mag on screen. often the paper is just a place to write the notes and make some highlights. If you must, blueprint services are still available at the UPS store for example or online. IN a pinch, the collage paste up usually works.

A printer that can feed fan fold paper probably does have banner setting, but most laser printers can't do that, you would still need a specialty ink jet probably. Yes, one still can buy a dot matrix printer too, they usually support fan fold.

haklesup wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2023 3:41 pm
A printer that can feed fan fold paper probably does have banner setting, but most laser printers can't do that, you would still need a specialty ink jet probably. Yes, one still can buy a dot matrix printer too, they usually support fan fold.

I had a dot matrix printer many, many, years ago... I had no idea they were still around. You are right. On Amazon.com they still sell them... And the fan fold tractor-feed paper too.

CeaSaR wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:54 pm
I'm still old school and like to open it up in paint, cut out 8"x10.5" rectangles and stitch them together after I use something like WORD (all borders @ 0.25") to get a good paste-n-print. But that's just me.

If you don't like the new versions of Paint, you can go to the Win-Aero site and download the Win7 classic paint. Biggest thing that gives you back is the Zoom function. Actually, its available on Win7Games site.

That is pretty much what I wanted to do, a few years back, when I first posted. Good to know about that Win7Games site.