Problem with Template

[Christine H.]

My Canon inkjet just about has a heart attack if I suggest that it do borderless printing on plain paper. :roll: There is a long list of caveats, including a warning that the scale may change. I would make sure your gridlines are still exactly 2" if you try this.

I have a Canon inkjet printer and am doing the same as you, but templates 1,3 and 4 print OK but template 2 causes the website and printing operation to crash - any ideas?

Chris, I am not doing the borderless printing. I will use my plan with the lightbox to line up the lines and numbers from the edge of one page to the next. Actually, I have ordered a bunch of vellum sheets just to help with this. I would hate to start out so early with any distortion in my templates. Hope that helps!

Monica I think I have solved the borderless printing issue. If you save the page as a adobe pdf from the browser, you can then print the pdf and page scaling appears as an option on the pdf print page. The dimensions come out correct.

[Sarah V.]

Hello Everyone,

I've been doing some experimenting. Here's what I did:

I printed the Month 01 Template1.pdf file that was sent to Lilo to post i.e. exactly what you all have on both of my printers. I have a Dell 2130cn Color Laser printer and an HP Photosmart B8550.

I also printed the original CorelDraw file on the laser printer.

The PDF printed on the laser compared with the original Corel file printed on the laser are identical and all squares measure 2" across and down.

The PDF printed on the HP Photosmart compared with the original Corel file printed on the laser is ever so slightly different. All squares measure 2" across. If you take 4 squares and measure down, the HP printed copy has gained about 1/32".

So this explains why the templates printed on the HP Photosmart - and possibly on some of your printers - are not aligning correctly. I have absolutely no idea how to fix this! I want to say that it is a printer issue as some printers generate accurate sizing and some apparently don't.

I was thinking that I could provide the templates to print onto legal sized paper (8.5"x14") but the issue (for my printer at least) is the the length is slightly distorted. It would minimize the number of joins that need to be made, so aligning the pages would be easier. Would this help?

If the circle (and hence your pieced block) ends up being 1/32" longer than it should be, given that we are working with fabric, I think that this level of accuracy will not be a problem. But I do agree that it is worrying when the templates don't join together correctly.

Got to run and get the girls from school. If anyone knows a printer guru that could help us with this issue, please speak up!

Kind regards,
Sarah :-)

[Chris T.]

My templates didn't line up where they should have but all the squares did measure 2" so I lined it up using a light box. Hopefully this should be fine and not lead to a problem further down the line.

Chris

[Jeanie S.]

Hi everyone,

Margo just alerted me to this thread. Reading through all of the posts, I'm pretty sure there is more than one thing that might be causing problems. Sarah already found one of them - not all printers print out exactly square. I will post an image later that you can print to test how your printer does as well as some other suggestions. (I'm not sure I can provide a fix for all of the issues, but hopefully I can shed some light on what is causing the problems.)

Jeanie
http://www.KalCollections.com

[Margo C.]

Thanks Jeanie! YOU ROCK!

[Jeanie S.]

I've written up a blog post on possible issues that some of you might be running into. I still have a little investigating to do on the last issue, but wanted to post what I've written so far to see if it helps some of you. There are a couple of PDF files in the post that you can download to help you diagnose problems as well. Please let me know if this is helpful or not.

Jeanie
http://www.KalCollections.com

[Sarah V.]

With Jeanie's help we have figured out how to get the tiled PDFs to print with a bigger bottom margin - thanks Jeanie!!!

The v2 files for Month 01 Template1.pdf and Month 01 Template 3.pdf are already on their way to Lilo.

Sarah :-)

[Shirley S.]

Wow! I am so impressed by the prompt relies! I printed mine out and am off to align...hopefully I will not need to put your great pointers to work!

[Judith A.]

Wow! Thank you, Jeanie for the great printer trouble-shooting help. You have a gift for writing and clearly explaining things. I appreciated the Printer-Test PDF. My Canon printed it out perfectly. All lines measured perfectly.

However, I was able to quickly determine that I have 2 of the other problems. I have both Issue # 3 and Issue #4.
I had no idea that you are supposed to line up the large registration mark on one page with the small registration mark on the other page. (1) The pattern instructions didn't mention this, and (2) both the large and small registration marks did not print on my templates, so I would have had no clue. Jeanie, your diagram illustrating this is excellent.

I also have Issue #4. Jeanie's Margin-Test PDF told me that my printer's built-in print margins are a tad too large, causing both registration marks on the templates to not print. I have a new Canon. Unfortunately, I have no option to adjust the built-in printer margins. I have no advanced margin setting option, and I don't have that rotation option. I am not sure what to do about this. I know that I am not going to start cutting into my batiks until I am sure I can print out the templates accurately.

I do have a suggestion. The pattern instructions say "There will be a grey grid printed on each page to help get the alignment exact. Each square in the grid should measure the size specified on the template." However, there is no grey grid on Template #2 or Template #4. Would it be possible to either add these grids to the remaining templates in this BOM, or maybe a 1" test square? If I recall correctly, the patterns in previous Quilt Show BOM's had a 1" test square on each template page. In light of these printing problems, it would be nice to have the security of checking a grid or test square, before cutting into your fabric.

[Jeanie S.]

I also have Issue #4. Jeanie's Margin-Test PDF told me that my printer's built-in print margins are a tad too large, causing both registration marks on the templates to not print. I have a new Canon. Unfortunately, I have no option to adjust the built-in printer margins. I have no advanced margin setting option, and I don't have that rotation option. I am not sure what to do about this. I know that I am not going to start cutting into my batiks until I am sure I can print out the templates accurately.

Thanks for the feedback on my instructions. I'm glad they helped!

Sarah has created new versions of the templates which should eliminate Issue #4. They will be posted on the TQS site soon. We'll let you know as soon as they are available (and where to find them)!

Jeanie
www.KalCollections.com

[Jeanie S.]

Jeanie , I thank you and Sarah for working so hard to fix this! None of the options worked for me. I did a screen print and pasted into a word document. The screen print will not paste here and I cannot attach a Word document, so I will email it to you so you can see what I am seeing. I purchased Jazzyilicious yesterday and I having the same issue with the CD. The only other last option I have is to see if a copy center can get the templates to print for me. Otherwise not sure what to do??? and the grid prints out at 2".

[Jeanie S.]

Sherie, I just sent you my e-mail address (to the e-mail associated with your account here.) I'd love to see the screenshot. It's hard to diagnose problems just by guessing what might be going on.

Jeanie
http://www.KalCollections.com

[Jeanie S.]

Sherie, I just sent you my e-mail address (to the e-mail associated with your account here.) I'd love to see the screenshot. It's hard to diagnose problems just by guessing what might be going on.

Jeanie
http://www.KalCollections.com

Done, thanks again for taking the time to help me! I really love Sarah's designs and want to make many more. If I MUST buy another printer then I must. :lol:

[Jeanie S.]

Sherie, This looks like a perfect example of what I call Issue #4. The new templates which Sarah has created should fix this problem. We're still waiting for those new templates to be posted; we'll make an announcement here when they're available.

Jeanie
http://www.KalCollections.com

[Chris T.]

Hi Jeannie & Sarah

Just wanted to bring my question back to the top. I have completed my centre circle which went together with no problem. However my templates did not line up so I put them together ensuring the 2" squares were maintained across the joins. My logic tells me this should work but have I made problems for myself further down the line and will how I obtain/construct future templates make a difference?
Thanks

Chris