Writer Does Not Recognize Printer Paper Sizes

[Zizi64]

A word processor is most correctly programmed to output the page exactly as displayed. However, that cannot work if the printer is not capable. Therefore the printer's abilities must always be known first. It is precisely why problems continually come up when not following this age-old mandate.

A perfect example of this is that so many people have trouble printing envelopes from Writer.

Your last statement seemed odd in that you appear to turn 180 degrees to my point of view:

How you will create a specific size of documents (Drawing or others) if your printer can not list (can not handle) it?


Exactly my point.

In some cases the printer (the desired printer) is not peresent, when you want to create a new document (at home, or at work). How the office suite will read the printer's abilities? Do you want to install a foreign printer driver first?!
The answer is: not (I hope). YOU must know it: what size of the standard (or custom) papers you will use when the document WILL BE printed. You must SET the desired paper size for your specific documents in the office suite.

And what about the documents, that have more than one papes size and orientation for a single document? (When the document has Portrait and Landscape page styles, and A5, A4 page sizes?)

And what about the documents, that never will be printed (on a paper), and you must optimize them for some size of the LCD/LED displays??? Where you will "read" the available sizes from??


All of the standard envelopes have an exact size. But the positioning and the orientation of the envelopes are basicly different for the different printers. That causes the problems.


The AOO and the LO are OpenSource softwares. You can download and modify the code.
If you can not modify, then use the available features, or choose an another tool instead it.

[John_Ha]

That is why the best word processors start with known formats that can indeed be printed by available printers.

Wrong yet again, but no matter.

Abandon your prejudices and read this post carefully. Now start thinking.

This is my last post as, with 31 posts already in the thread, you seem to me to be trolling.

[KitchM]

@ Zizi64
You've made some excellent points which I believe have helped clarify the issue.

In fact, I believe I understand your position. I am just not used to doing things that way. It makes it so difficult to relearn something after forty years when the method doesn't seem intuitive.

I will say that your statement:

How the office suite will read the printer's abilities?

is interesting and lies at the heart of it all.

The way it is done is to make sure the office suite keeps the document in its own format, and, when opened, it formats it for available printers. That way it maintains its portability from computer to computer within the same suite, and is still able to display the true WYSIWYG output based upon the default printer attached to the current computer.

I think you can see how this method as I've described will solve all the further points you've made. It has worked very slick for decades on non-Linux platforms.

@ John_Ha

Wrong yet again,

Prove it.

Please do not use name-calling. I do not find that very nice or helpful at all.

[Zizi64]

The way it is done is to make sure the office suite keeps the document in its own format, and, when opened, it formats it for available printers.

It means more works. You need re-pagination the document (or checking the automatic re-pagination of the document) for the actual papes size of the actual printer.
And what would will be that "own format"?

If you planned a document for A4 page size (or other), then create, edit and print it (if it is even necessary in an electronic world) in A4 size (or other). Do not change the size of the finished document - if it in not necessary.

The method of the AOO and LO are very appropriate for me. I hope it will not be changed.
Sorry, I have not more arguments ...

[KitchM]

I think that the issue of more works may not be what we think. Programming one way versus another may not be more lines of code.

With regard to layout (what I believe you are referencing), there is no need for worrying about re-pagination or similar issues. The simplest way of looking at the issue is to see a pile or bucket of contents in a particular order. The content is tagged as needed by line returns, font changes, headings, footers, ect., and included in-line with the same content, becoming part of that.

Then the user selects his format and this content (text, images, etc.) is poured into the selected format. The formats are always selected from those available, and that is determined from the printers, which may include "print-to-file". Without a printer there is no final format, just a native "format" if you will, which is basically that big pile or bucket.

This is the way it was done since the 1980s and that made it easy to have very finely defined document format which rivalled desktop publishing and basically caused the elimination of that category of software.

It is not harder to use; in fact it is more intuitive and easy.

[John_Ha]

It makes no sense to start any project unless one know the printer can handle it. Why bother?

That is a ridiculous statement.

The whole point of Styles is it permits the user to create a document which can quickly and easily be reformatted for in multiple different ways, including, for example as a printed A4 document, a printed foolscap document, a printed A5 document, a custom size book, an e-book, a PDF, ... or anything else the user chooses.

The formats are always selected from those available...

Wrong.

The Page Size is selected from those the authors of AOO decided to make available when they wrote the software. The Page Sizes are hard coded into the software and cannot be changed. They are included under the Format > Page > Page ..., dialogue. The authors of AOO chose to include common standard paper sizes like A4, A5, Letter and Legal etc for the encoded Page Sizes. The authors also included a Page Size called User which allows the user to set any Page Size.

... and that is determined from the printers

Absolutely, totally 100% wrong.

Read the paragraph above which begins "The Page Size ..." and ends "... any Page Size."

Try to understand the difference between Page Size, which is how big the document is in Writer; and Paper Size, which is how big the sheet of paper in the printer is. Page Size and Paper Size are completely different things, but the completely different things can both be the same size or be different sizes.

If an elephant is 10 feet tall, and a giraffe is 10 feet tall, that does not mean the elephant and the giraffe are the same thing.

Without a printer there is no final format

That is a ridiculous statement.

A user creates the document they want to create in the format they want. They may distribute it as a PDF file or email it as a .odt file. They may want to create an e-book or a Kindle book. All of these are "final format" and have nothing to do with printing or printers. Installing a printer is NOT a requirement for installing and using AOO.

If the user decides they want a paper copy, they then have to decide how to print it based on what printer they have and what paper it can handle. They will need to shrink it if the printer only accepts small sheets of paper, or spread each page over several sheets of paper. They might print two pages per sheet if the printer accepts large sheets of paper.

Writer has an option under Tools > Options > OpenOffice Writer > Compatibility called "Use printer metrics for document formatting" which, by default, is not checked. Check Help for what it does. I presume that the document_on_screen will no longer always be identical when opened, but will change depending on which printer it was last printed on.