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Functionality missing from Mac OS X Epson printer drivers; workaround
One of the primary functions missing in the Mac OS X versions of some Epson printer drivers is the option to select a "maximum printing area."
What this means is, in OS X the margins are 0.13 inches at the top, left, and right sides, but 0.56 inches at the bottom. With the Mac OS 9 drivers, it is possible to print to within 0.13 inches of the bottom also.
One MacFixIt reader writes "This has required many businesses, including mine, to redesign letterheads and forms which were designed to fit the OS 9 printer drivers' printable area; I remember a mention over a year ago? on MacFixit, I think? of an attorney's office which chose to revert to OS 9 instead of redesigning their paperwork. The utter simplicity of this feature makes it hard for me to understand why Epson has not included it in the OS X driver after three years."
Some users have had success using the open-source gimp-print drivers to achieve this functionality, while others report that while a maximum printing area can be specified, it is not transferred to the printer when the page is delivered.
UPDATE: MacFixIt reader Ken Goff discovered that changing the setting from "US Letter" to "Legal" tricks the Epson drivers into printing some maximum print area forms properly:
"In my situation, forms that must print to 0.25 inches of the bottom were being cut off. The same forms would print properly on a PostScript laser printer. For Epson Sylus Photo 700 and 740 printers, in page setup, changing 'US Letter' to 'Legal' fools the printer into printing those forms properly. Everything else lines up properly as well."
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.Resources
lacks Borderless Printing.
Quite an annoyanceand disappointment when I want to print some full
size photos... I used to revert to OS 9/Classic a long while ago but
nowadays, I just couldn't be bother and take the photos and print at my
office (still on 9)
This must be a carry-over from the earlier Epson
printers that needed that last half-inch to "hold on" to
the paper.
Under 9, the Epson 3000 driver gives half-inch borders
top and bottom, but reduces the top border to .13" if you
tell it "maximum area".
A4 is narrower than Letter and Legal, but it's longer than Letter. The
length is, of course, the longer size.
I'd think printing on Legal should work, since it's bigger in both
dimensions.
support, and tired to change all my forms and letterheads because of
Epsons OSX driver limitaions. My current Epson C80 is now almost
jobless, because I bought a Canon i850. It prints on DIN A4 with 3 mm
margin on top,3.4 mm left and right, 5 mm on bottom. And it prints
beautiful borderless photos on A4 and on 4x6" and 5x7". Besides that,
Canon's ink costs less than half of Epson's, and in addition the ink
consumption is even much less ... this and a few other advantages made
me finally happy about Epson not updating their driver!
I almost bought an Epson C80 (to replace my ancient ESC 800), but
found the patience to wait. I'd never seriously considered Canon
printers, then glowing reviews for the i850 caught my attention and after
"demo"ing it the choice was obvious. I've been very satisfied with it for
photo and general purpose printing from my iBook and wife's PC for
about six months. It's even impressed my wife, who typically cares less
about technology. :-) And a friend recently asked her "what printer did
you use?" after seeing some average quality output.
Canon ink cost is "reasonable"; the photo paper is pricey so I only
use it when high quality is important. Fading is noticeable when using
old Epson matte paper, as expected.
The frustrating margin issues I had with the Epson using different
systems/drivers/apps are history. For all the printing I do at home the
i850 OS X driver "just works" as expected without unneeded complexity.
Find your correct printer with GIMP. On "page set up" put the gimp
printer in the "format for' area...when you get to the 'print' page,
select your standard printer driver in the "printer" info area.
Now I actually am using my printer driver but somehow it fools the
page set up portion so I can print with minimum borders. It centers
my 6x9 images perfectly now and my letter head art is now
hugging the top and bottom of our 8.5 x 11 page.. I use a 700, 890,
2200.
Let me
know how everything works.
control and also a black-ink only option. I tried reinstalling Epson's
Jaguar driver, but nada - doesn't show up. Epson's site makes no
mention of Panther. Functionality should always be added, not removed,
with operating system upgrades. Is there any way to get the Jaguar driver
to work with Panther? Any word from Epson on whether replacement
drivers are on the way?
I just got a 20" iMac with Panther, upgraded it to 10.3.1, downloaded Epson's driver for a Photo 780,and found that any color image printout (Photoshop) is REALLY slow. Text starts slowly and abruptly speeds up. I tried my friend's 820 with similar results. Since Panther's library lists the latter driver, I can only assume Apple used the latest from Epson, suggesting that imminent, more effective drivers may be questionable. In OS9 there is normal behavior, but a file can't be directly printed from the parent application, an awkward process.
- by bytefisher January 8, 2004 9:47 AM PST
- I have an Epson Photo 1280 printer. I was told to use printer driver
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(10 Comments)v1.5aA download (and install epson 10687 driver) from the Epson site to
correct the border setting problems I was having with OS X. This did
solve my problems. The problem now is that it only works with DIRECT
usb printing.
I have recently setup an ethernet network at home using an airport base
station to share my printing needs, a G4 tower (OS 10.2) ethernetted to
the base station and an iBook (OS 10.3) that is running wireless.
Epson tell me the 10687 version will not work over a network -- I
proved that out -- but they are working on a fix for that driver that will
soon be released. To share over the net, I have to use driver 10620 that
takes me back to my border problems.
Hope this is a help!
-- Bytefisher