Printing Problems from Photoshop 4 (and 6, and 7...) for Windows

April 10, 2000 – This week’s article will finally put to rest the insane problem we’ve had in the labs with funky Photoshop printing problems from the PCs.

For several months now, there has been a problem with printing 11 x 17 documents from the PCs using Photoshop. If you’ve tried it, you know what it is. Your document prints with about 75% of it missing, except for a thin line of background or image at one of the longer edges.

(This is what is printed.)

Now, I still haven’t found out why this happens, but I’ve sort of worked out how to make it stop. I say sort of, because the fix changes from time to time, depending on the size of the image, the orientation, and the phases of the moon (this is very scientific).

So, here is how to fix it.

Easiest - Move to a Mac and print. This works without fail, and is easiest if you are in a hurry, or if nothing else works.

If you don’t want to do this, you can follow this procedure. You can try these steps one by one, printing after every change, or do them all at once.

1. Make sure that you have the correct paper tray set. If your document is 11 x 17, make sure that it is set to Tray 3. That Automatic Select feature doesn’t always automatically select the correct tray. Make sure that it is consistent.

2. Make sure that your image fits within the printable area of the paper. For some reason, if Photoshop has to crop the image during printing, you can get this "missing area" problem. Make sure that your dimensions allow for .25 inch margins on all sides.

3. Curse and walk around while getting really mad. Make sure that you call the machine every name in the book while you do this. * Actually, this will only activate the Crisis Detection Extension and will cause your machine to crash. Whatever you do, remain calm and do not, repeat, do not push the big button on the front of the machine, no matter what the computer tells you to do.

4. If you are trying to print landscape, rotate your image 90° Clockwise, and change the page orientation in the Page Setup dialog to Portrait.

If this still doesn't work, see the Easiest solution above.

–J

Jennifer Nieland is the lab coordinator for the College of the Design student computer labs and is convinced that things like this happen just to make her crazy!