Page size and margins

[Mike-DE-RE]

So far the program pays no respect to page setup. I've prepared a new ESC/P2 sample from our labeling software:

20170510.zip

The lable itself is 45x45mm.

They are arranged on a page with 4 columns and 6 rows, 24 labels on one page.

Distance from the left side of the outmost left label to the right side of the outmost right label it is 186mm.

Page length is 12" = 304.8mm.

Meaning there is a top margin of 2.9mm, a distance between the rable rows of 5.8mm and a bottom margin of 2.9mm again.

Left and right margin is a little difficult, because on line printers you could always move the paper horizontally.

But one can calculate that there is a 2mm distance between the label columns.

Here is a scan of such a page I created with a matrix printer (no ink - for higher precision):

Scan isn't as good as I thought. I may have to repeat it with higher contrast to show the paper and labels.

[Mike-DE-RE]

Here is a new scan of the same page, showing paper limits (top and right have been enhanced manually):

[Mike-DE-RE]

To help with page size and margins I have created another document with Word for DOS using EPLQ.DBS and selecting "LQ-series (multifont.) 1.0" as printer modell. It is a colour mix of text and graphic, resolution 360x180:

RETRO.zip

This is on a DIN A4 page (210 x 297mm). Top and bottom margin is 7.5mm, right margin is 20.1mm, left margin is 20mm.

Picture is scaled to 173.4 x 130 mm and centered, it is a screenshot of your website colour reduced to fixed eight colours using Stucki algorithm.

Can be used for testing colour as well, see #8

[RWAP]

The program currently ignores top and bottom margins and paper size settings passed as ESC ( C command. However, the left and right margins are set.

I have started a method in the initialize() function to set up the paper sizes - standard margins could also be set here - as many printers rely on these being set through DIP switch settings, it is impossible to automate these unless they are passed by the printer program itself.

[Mike-DE-RE]

I completely understand. But as you can see from the RETRO.zip sample an A4 page still splits to three png/pdf files.

I would suggest 12" paper to be default for the program because at the time of ESC/P(2) that was the main page/paper format used.

[RWAP]

The latest beta version of the software adheres to the top, bottom and side margins. You can set them up for the given page size in the initialize() routine. I have added default offsets in there according to the ESC/P2 programming reference manual, along with support for A4, A4 landscape and 12" paper sizes - more can easily be added

As part of the re-consideration of the PNG to PDF conversion routine, we need to look at how to set up the paper sizes passed to the PDF to ensure these are correct - see:
http://www.imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#page

We need to pass parameters if we are continuing to use ImageMagick...

[Mike-DE-RE]

Opening the pdf with Adobe Acrobat showes the file like this:

The document has a size of 2,100.4 x 2,969.3 mm. One could print it using "Fit to Printable Area" but that influences the original size of the print. Trying to print on lables would be completely impossible.

[Mike-DE-RE]

Opening the png in gimp showes that the file is

5954 x 8417px
2100,44 x 2969,33mm
with a resolution of 72dpi

Setting resolution to 720dpi will not affect the pixels but will correct the size in mm to

210,04 x 296,93mm

I think that is required here.

[RWAP]

This will need to be looked at once we have decided on the PNG to PDF conversion routine.

For now - we need to add page sizes to the initialize() routine and can then pass that to the convert command.

[Mike-DE-RE]

I have taken gimp to set the original PNG file to 720dpi. After that I used

convert input.png output.pdf

to convert it to PDF. Here is the result:

So as far as I see, all you have to do is set the PNG to 720dpi resolution.

[Mike-DE-RE]

Now that I've done above step. I was able to join the PNG with my scan:

I have coloured you PNG in green below that is my original scan. I wouldn't have expected this result.

[RWAP]

The latest source now includes setting the PNG resolution to 720dpi - does this help?

[Mike-DE-RE]

1st - Can confirm that resolution now is 720dpi.

2nd - I am back to black background now.

3rd - It is difficult to match both scan and converted image when conversion result is a black page. ;-)