Margins outside printable area

[danslation]

When I create or open a document in Nisus Pro (2.0.4) and then attempt to print, I routinely get this error message: "Some of the document margins are outside the printable area for this printer. Would you like to have the margins automatically corrected or print them as is? If you print without fixing the margins a portion the page may be clipped." This happens even when my document has perfectly normal, default margins (inner 1 in; outer 1 in; top 1.25 in; bottom 1.25 in; header 0.75 in; footer 0.75 in).

If I click on "Print As Is," my margins come out askew, typically far too narrow on the right and top, with text clipped off from both those edges. If I click on "Fix Margins," I get the same dismal result. If I print the file as a PDF document, no text gets clipped off, but the right and top margins still come out far too narrow.

I use an iMac desktop computer (mid-2010), running OS 10.7.4 (Lion). My main printer is an HP LaserJet 4M Plus, connected with an Ethernet cable. My computer also connects via Ethernet cable to a Brother MFC-J825DW all-in-one printer; when I try to print Nisus documents on the Brother, I get the same dismal results mentioned above. I do not get these margins problems when printing from Text Edit or Microsoft Word.

[martin]

I'm sorry you've had trouble with printing in Nisus Writer Pro. One question: do you have document print scaling turned on?

In other words, when you visit the Page Setup dialog, what percentage is set for the "Scale" setting? If it's not at 100%, does the problem go away when you set it to 100 percent?

[danslation]

I checked my Page Setup dialog and found the Scale set to 90%. I reset it to 100%, and that indeed resolved my basic problem with the margins — at least for the problematic documents I've tested so far.
Thanks very much!

[martin]

We're happy to help! Of course this is still a bug that needs fixing; you should be able to use the page scaling option. I'll get that issue filed- thank you for letting us know.

[danslation]

Thanks for the follow-up, Martin. I find that when I reopen a margins-sensitive document, the margins appear askew again, so that I have to reset the Page Setup —> Scale to 100%. I can't seem to find any way to default to 100% using Preferences.

[martin]

That's unexpected. After you change the scaling to 100%, are you doing anything with these files outside of Nisus Writer? I ask because the print scaling is saved inside the file by Nisus Writer, so after you've changed a specific document to 100% it should stay at 100% until you adjust it using the Page Setup dialog.

There is no global setting/preference to control the print scaling of documents, as it is stored separately on a per-file basis. Unless you're talking about new documents you create in Nisus Writer? In that case the scaling is taking from your Nisus New File template.

[ninjagame]

I've had the same situation danslation described. My documents are scaled to 75%. I could re-scale them to 100% but that would be really time-consuming... Glad to learn that there is indeed an issue and that it's in the process of being fixed.
Maybe I can help clarifying the situation by providing the results of an experiment I tried. In a novel I'm currently writing, the first three chapters have been created with an earlier version of NWP (v2.0); the most recent chapter (ch. 4) has been created with NWP 2.0.4 from ch. 3 via the "Safe As" method.

- When I try to print the first three chapters using the earlier version of NWP, I get the correct formatting. (OK, I haven't really "printed" them yet but I've created PDFs and they show the same behavior as actual prints.) This happens even if I've opened the documents with NWP 2.0.4 prior to that. (I don't remember, though, if I've edited them or just opened them and closed them again. Might be worth a try.)
- When I try to print these first three chapters with NWP 2.0.4, the margins come out askew, text is clipped, etc. - just as danslation wrote.
- When I try to print the newest chapter using the earlier version (v2.0), I also get this result.

This seems to point to some, ahem, feature of NWP 2.0.4 as the culprit.
Hope it helps!

- ninjagame

[danslation]

Hi Martin,
No, I'm not doing anything with these files outside of Nisus Writer — just printing them with my HP LaserJet 4M Plus. After I change the scaling to 100%, re-save the file, close it, and later reopen it, I find it has reverted to 90% scaling. So it seems to default back to 90% scaling either when I close the file or reopen it.

Thanks, ninjagame, for documenting your similar misadventures with "margins outside printable area."

[martin]

No, I'm not doing anything with these files outside of Nisus Writer — just printing them with my HP LaserJet 4M Plus. After I change the scaling to 100%, re-save the file, close it, and later reopen it, I find it has reverted to 90% scaling.

That sounds like another issue, possibly related, but one I'm not aware of. Would you be able to send us a file that exhibits this problem so we can have a look and make sure we fix that too?

[danslation]

Hi Martin,

I'm attaching a file (one of many) that keeps slipping back to 90% scaling when I close it and then reopen it. Sorry for the delayed response.

[martin]

I'm attaching a file (one of many) that keeps slipping back to 90% scaling when I close it and then reopen it. Sorry for the delayed response.

No problem about the delay. I took a look at the file and there's nothing about it that specifies a 90% scaling factor, so I think something else must be going on here. I searched a little bit on google and see that other users have had trouble with bad settings "sticking" in page setup. The solution seems to be to hunt down and clear away some saved Apple printer presets.

I would recommend that you:
1. Quit NWP if it is running.
2. Open the Preferences folder in your user/home folder at:
~/Library/Preferences

3. Delete (or move aside) some Apple printer preset files, eg: "com.apple.print.custompresets.plist". There may be a couple of files with similar names, for different printers you might be using.
4. Relaunch NWP and see if the page setup is corrected.

I hope that helps. Let us know how it goes.

[danslation]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your thorough response. Your investigation and suggestion got me thinking about my system-wide printer settings, and that led me to a simpler solution. I remembered that both Safari and the Macintosh Mail application normally scaled my documents to 90% when it came to printing. I'd never considered that a problem, since the 90% scaling did not cause any serious margins or other formatting glitch in Safari or Mail.

Anyway, from within NWP, I selected File—>Page Setup, then changed the Scale from 90% to 100% (so far, nothing new). Then I noticed, at the top of that pull-down menu, the heading "Settings" followed by a submenu box reading "Page Attributes." When I clicked on the box reading "Page Attributes," it gave me the option of changing that to "Save as Default." So I dragged my cursor down a notch to select "Save as Default." At first nothing seemed to happen, as the menu box reverted to "Page Attributes." But the next time I restarted my computer and opened NWP, I found my page scale defaulting to 100%! Now all my Nisus Writer documents seem to format and print fine upen opening. My Safari and Mail applications are also defaulting to 100% scale.

[martin]

Excellent, I'm glad you've solved the problem, and without the need to muck about with preference files. Thanks for letting us know, and for the extra tip.

[danslation]

Thanks for your patient support and follow-through. Only one glitch remains for me: When I open a new document in NWP (File—>New), the scaling slips back to 90%.

[ninjagame]

BTW - is there any progress re. solving the issue of "margins outside the printable area"? I mean - for the time being I can live with just "seeing" my documents as they are displayed in page view while I'm working on them but some day I'll have to print them and I'm wondering if that will be possible without reformatting and re-scaling all of them...