Kicad printing cuts off - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2016, 10:21:41 pm
content: Is there a way to fix this? When I print in Kicad, it cuts off a big chunk of the page. Ex:Running Linux Mint 17.1, and Kicad version 4.02.

author: Neverther
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2016, 07:29:30 am
content: Does the print preview look the same?Or if you export pdf first?Is that paper even A4?If that paper is A4, the aspect ratio should be correct. But it does not look so?Preview and pdf look fine with 4.0.2 on Archlinux.Even changing the page settings to A5/landscape/portait in the print window scaled the schematic page to fit the sheet. Just set it to correct paper?

author: SimonR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2016, 12:55:55 pm
content: That clearly isn't A4 it looks too square.The USA doesn't use A4. And I assume Canada as wellSo the question is does Kicad default to A4 page size, in which cas that's likely to be the problem

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2016, 05:09:20 pm
content: In print preview it looks fine, and yeah that's A4, the paper under it with the words test in the corners I printed from Libre Office where I set the margins to minimum and put the word in each corner and it printed fine.I did not think of exporting to PDF first though. I did that which worked fine, then printed the PDF and it came out fine. Only thing I find weird, and this is probably a Linux issue, but it only prints one page at a time. Printer spools up, one page comes out, spools down, then spools up etc. I don't do a lot of printing thankfully, otherwise it could take ages to print anything with like 10 pages.

author: nali
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2016, 05:25:30 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on June 12, 2016, 05:09:20 pmThat paper looks nothing like A4... what does it measure? A4 should be 210 x 297mm i.e. it should be almost half as much longer as it is wide.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2016, 09:25:41 pm
content: Maybe it's just the angle of the camera that makes it look that way. Paper measures about 278mm x 216mm which is oddly different than what you said though... is "letter" the same as A4? This is letter. You might be thinking about legal? That tends to be longer.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2016, 09:30:50 pm
content: Printer setting: Fit To Page ?

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2016, 11:43:48 pm
content: Yeah it was set that way, and print preview looked fine. But turns out A4 and letter is NOT the same - I always figured it was so just picked that as it was default. I picked Letter and now it comes out ok. Saves me from printing to PDF first.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2016, 06:32:12 am
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on June 12, 2016, 11:43:48 pmPC LOAD LETTER

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2016, 06:53:12 am
content: https://www.youtube.com/embed/mHeo62B0d0E

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2016, 11:45:55 am
content: So at can say again...Fucking imperial systems! Get international ones!

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2016, 08:31:09 pm
content: Quote from: BradC on June 13, 2016, 06:32:12 amMy first time messing with LCD displays, that was the first thing I made it say. Better than Hello world.

author: BradC
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 14, 2016, 03:41:04 am
content: My laserjet still says it from time to time just to remind me that HP firmware engineers have a sense of humour.

author: SkyMaster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 14, 2016, 04:01:15 am
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on June 12, 2016, 11:43:48 pmRed Squirrel, as you noticed A4 and letter are totally different size. Basically, A4 does not exist in North America (but seem to be the standard everywhere else in the world).Letter is 8.5" x 11"Legal is 8.5" x 14"

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2016, 10:06:16 pm
content: So it seems it never remembers the setting and always defaults back to A4. Is there a way to fix this?Also it prints 1 page at a time instead of everything at once, is there a way to fix that also? It takes like 3 minutes to print 3 pages. Printer spools up, warms up, 1 page comes out, it spools down. Printer spools up, 1 page comes out... etc. In any other program it prints all at once. I suppose I can live with that since I don't print that much, it's more annoying than anything.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 13, 2016, 10:57:34 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on July 13, 2016, 10:06:16 pmFile -> Page options?Quote from: Red Squirrel on July 13, 2016, 10:06:16 pmLaser printers are fast for text because they're able to handle raw text and apply fonts themselves, making for lightweight documents. I presume a schematic can't be rendered into any primitives the printer can support, and as such it has to be made into a full page bitmap. That's heavy and the particular printer doesn't have enough memory to handle more than one page at once.

author: Watth
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2016, 12:51:51 pm
content: Quote from: Kilrah on July 13, 2016, 10:57:34 pmLolwut? I don't see why a Laser driver would handle text differently from a inkjet. I can print schematics on a laser printer without lag.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 17, 2016, 06:14:17 pm
content: A laser printer needs to buffer the entire page in its own memory before it can start printing, the print is an uninterruptible process. An inkjet doesn't need to, it can receive the data piece by piece while it's printing and stop for any needed amount of time during the print if it has to wait for data.

author: Watth
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2016, 07:20:33 pm
content: Oh I see. That makes sense.But as for the processing time, in my humble experience, it didn't seem to exceed the warm-up time.

author: Kilrah
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 17, 2016, 07:26:59 pm
content: I've had the same experience with KiCAD, it seems to sometimes render the schematics in some weird form that printers/drivers can't handle well. Even when trying to save it as a PDF instead of printing straight from KiCAD, then optimizing said PDF so that it was only about 100kB and printing that it would still take several minutes to print a page.

author: technotronix
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2016, 09:52:39 am
content: I agree. Paper size is not A4. You can go with PDF.