Print Preview Aliasing

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Print Preview Aliasing

2005-10-01 06:03 am

Been meaning to ask about this for a while...

I am experiencing an aliasing problem in Print Preview, which I see has been discussed to a small extent on the forums. Cutting right to the question, can anything be done to clean up the preview display?

I read that reducing printer resolution before Print Preview can help clear up the problem. My HP Deskjet does of course have a high resolution, what ever it is, and it cannot be changed so far as I can tell. Switching to the ‘fax printer’, which has a 200 dpi resolution, does help a great deal with the display. I gather that 72 dpi would be better, but where does one find a low-resolution print driver now days?

Any suggestions will be welcome…

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #1 – 2005-10-01 12:13 pm

You can always install some random printer driver from the "plug and play" ones that are built into Windows. But I doubt if you will find anything as low as 72dpi (on Windows, 96dpi might be better).

You can also try installing "PDFcreator" from SourceForge, a free PDF program. I have it. Among other things, it installs a dummy printer driver with 72 and 96 dpi (and many other choices).

But be aware that it is a bad idea to preview with one printer, then print with another printer (or, using different settings for the same printer). The reason is that the place where staff systems break is calculated from printer driver settings. In some cases, a miniscule change in the printer driver will cause systems to break at different measures, because the break happens to straddle a calculation point.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #2 – 2005-10-01 06:54 pm

Thank you Robert. I will give PDFCreator a try, but based on your second comment, the best thing may be to just continue ignoring the display grunge. It still gives you a representive feel for the layout.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #3 – 2005-10-01 08:07 pm

Try a "right click" in Print Preview.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #4 – 2005-10-02 01:00 am

I use right click, but at 1024x768 there is no way to see the whole page. Thank you for the suggestion.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #5 – 2005-10-02 01:57 am

What is 'Print Aliasing'?

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #6 – 2005-10-02 03:59 am

What operating system are you using. If it it Win98 or NT, I may be able to help.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #7 – 2005-10-02 04:18 am

Rick, the OS is Windows XP Pro.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #8 – 2005-10-02 06:23 am

Try an Okidata ML 192.
288x144 (not very useful)
144x144 quite nice, comes close to matching 300x300dpi
72x72 a page fits nicely in a screen.

I remember this printer. ML stands for "MicroLine" It is a dot matrix printer that is only ~3" high (x8x10).

Hope this helps.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #9 – 2005-10-02 06:31 am

Very good Rick... thank you again. I will give this a try tomorrow. Middle of the night now, and I am not responsible for my own actions. You could have seen what I meant; I spent more time correcting that typing :-)

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #10 – 2005-10-02 09:23 pm

Could not agree with you more, llucyy.
What is print aliasing?

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #11 – 2005-10-03 02:34 am

Thank you Rick... I give that a try.

Aliasing? Not exactly sure how to put it in words. It is a 'roughness', an artifact, in one form or another, that results from a difference in printer resolution (being the greater) and screen resolution (being the lesser). It is similar in concept to the aliasing that occurs in digital signal processing resulting from oversampling a signal, which can result in false signals being generated. I think the term probably originated in that discipline. Google a bit, and you no doubt can find more.

Re: Print Preview Aliasing

Reply #12 – 2005-10-03 02:54 am

All right!!!... That worked just great Rick. Thank you again! Took me a few minutes to find the printer settings, but all is well. And I set it to print to a file in case I try to do a real print. Pops up a window asking for the file name, a dead giveaway :-) I will be mindful of the problem that Robert mentioned.