Print small booklet in AOO Writer

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RevREK
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Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RevREK »

Serving as a Worship leader in a church, I have created a 16 page worship folder, intending to use 8.5" x 14 '" paper in landscape mode.

I created the PAGES as 7" wide, 8.5" high in PORTRAIT mode. All the text is in, but when I try to print I cannot find a place in Open Office Writer to allow me to specific the use of 8.5" x 14 '" paper. It wants to always print on 8.5" x 11 '" paper and it reduces the size of all print and graphics with large margins at the top and bottom of each page.


Interestingly the pages sequences are all correct. Just can't find how to print on 8.5" x 14 '" paper.

Help needed by Thursday morning, January 17, 2019
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RoryOF
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RoryOF »

You have set your Page size correctly. You now need to set the Paper size; this is a property of your printer, and you access that by /File /Print : Properties button. If your printer will not take US Legal paper size, you cannot print your booklet.

Also, in /File /Print : Page layout tab, select brochure.
 Edit: Is your printer a duplex printer? 
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John_Ha
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by John_Ha »

As a new poster you will find much useful information in the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials, the up to date Writer guide and the Writer Manual. May I suggest you bookmark the pages.

Press F1 to access the Help screen and search for your problem by searching with brochure. See Printing a brochure on p 153 of the Writer Guide.

The chapter headings in the manual are:

1 - Introducing Writer
2 - Setting up Writer
3 - Working with Text
4 - Formatting Pages
5 - Printing, Exporting, Faxing and E-Mailing
6 - Introduction to Styles
7 - Working with Styles
8 - Working with Graphics
9 - Working with Tables
10 - Working with Templates
11 - Using Mail Merge
12 - Tables of Contents, Indexes and Bibliographies
13 - Working with Master Documents
14 - Working with Fields
15 - Using Forms in Writer
16 - Customizing Writer – Keyboard shortcuts.

When a pop-up window opens, click the Help button for extensive help on that function - it is often more comprehensive than the manual.
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RevREK
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RevREK »

I have read all that material before I wrote my request for help. There is nothing in there about choosing the size of the paper you want to print on. I was hoping for step by step instructions, because I have gone through the step listed in your referenced document and there is NO HELP there for the challenge I face.
I thank you for your quick response, but I did not find it helpful.
Respectfully,
Richard Kurth
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robleyd
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by robleyd »

As RoryOF suggested, open the Print dialog - File | Print and use the Properties button to set the paper size on your printer. The screenshot below will give you an indication of what you may see; it will vary somewhat between printers with different capabilities.
print_properties.png
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David
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RoryOF
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RoryOF »

I have looked in that area of the program and have not found as way to
change the size of the paper. Do you have Step by Step instructions you
could forward to me? Would be much appreciated.

On all my computers on the /File /Print window, on the General tab there is a Properties button beneath the printer selection window (I have multiple printers); Select your target printer (probably selected by default), then press that button. It opens another window with two tabs - one Paper (selected by default) and one Device.

On the Paper tab I can select from a dropdown paper sizes that the Printer supports - this in my case is set to A4 (European standard paper size), in your case probably US Letter. If the printer supports US Legal, you should select it there. There are also dropdowns for orientation: Portrait/Landscape, and if a duplex printer for Duplex: OFF/short edge flip/long edge flip. You probably want short edge flip unless your printer is single sided only.

In /File /Print, on Page Layout tab choose Brochure. If your printer is single sided, under Page Sides, use the dropdown to select Back pages or Front pages. If a duplex printer, select All pages. If you print Back pages or Front pages, then you will have to insert the paper stack of printed pages into the printer and choose the other option for printing the other sides.

With a single sided printer one can get confused about whether the stack is printed from the top or the bottom and the orientation of the stack - these depend on the printer and need experimentation (and notes) with a short document to get everything right. If using a duplex printer and your trial document has the back sides upside down, change the flip option to the other setting.
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by John_Ha »

RevREK wrote:when I try to print I cannot find a place in Open Office Writer to allow me to specific the use of 8.5" x 14 '" paper. It wants to always print on 8.5" x 11 '" paper and it reduces the size of all print and graphics with large margins at the top and bottom of each page.
...
I have read all that material before I wrote my request for help. There is nothing in there about choosing the size of the paper you want to print on.
If you read page 153 it says:
Printing a brochure

In Writer, Impress, and Draw, you can print a document with two pages on each side of a sheet of paper, arranged so that when the printed pages are folded in half, the pages are in the correct order to form a booklet or brochure.

Tip Plan your document so it will look good when printed half size; choose appropriate margins, font sizes, and so on. You may need to experiment.

To print a brochure on a single-sided printer:

1) Choose File > Print.
2) In the Print dialog box, click Properties.
3) Check the printer is set to the same orientation (portrait or landscape) as specified in the page setup for your document. Usually the orientation does not matter, but it does for brochures. Click OK to return to the Print dialog box.
4) Select the Page layout tab in the Print dialog box.
5) Select the Brochure option.
6) In the Page sides section, select Back sides / left pages option from the Include
drop-down list.

Clipboard01.gif
7) Click the Print button.
8) Take the printed pages out of the printer, turn the pages over, and put them back into the printer in the correct orientation to print on the blank side. You may need to experiment a bit to find out what the correct arrangement is for your printer.
8) On the Print dialog box, in the Page sides section, select Front sides / right pages option from the Include drop down box.
9) Click the Print button.
Tip If your printer can print double-sided automatically, choose All pages.
[/i]
So, select a page size which is one half the paper size as the Guide says.

There is an old saying. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.
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RoryOF
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RoryOF »

He has picked a page size which is half of US Legal; learning how to print a brochure is very much a matter of experimenting with the printer to be used and a short sample booklet. I print in brochure format very often, but with a new printer recently I had to fiddle around with the settings to get to grips with its printer driver so as to get a booklet to print correctly.
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by John_Ha »

RevREK wrote: I cannot find a place in Open Office Writer to allow me to specify the use of 8.5" x 14" paper
I think it's partially the usual problem of differentiating between "page size", which is how big it appears when editing it; and "paper size", which is the size of the sheet of paper. They are not linked and there is no place in AOO for changing the paper size - it is done in the printer driver by the printer dialogue, when you decide how to map your "page size" to the available "paper sizes".
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RoryOF
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RoryOF »

One question:

What is your printer (Make, Model). Once we know that, we can find out if it is single sided or duplex, and if it can handle US Legal.
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by John_Ha »

See File > Printer Settings ... for paper settings.
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RoryOF »

I forgot about that - there are almost always multiple ways of doing a task in OpenOffice.
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by John_Ha »

It's also available (on my HP 3055 and no doubt other printers) if you go File > Print ..., and click Properties.

It can best be summarised as before you use a printer you need to tell the printer driver what size of paper you are loading into it. This is obviously completely independent of any applications.

Do so by opening the Printer driver Properties dialogue. In Windows, go Start > Devices and Printers > right-click the printer. You are now talking to the printer driver. Select Printer properties .... Now tell the printer driver the size of the paper you are putting in the tray. This is a property of the printer, not the application. The size is stored in the printer driver and is made available to all applications.

Printer drivers make this dialogue available to applications through the application's print dialogue. So, in AOO, go File > Print. Now click Preferences. But you are talking to the printer driver when you do this and you are making changes to the printer driver. Nothing you do here is recorded or changed in the application.
 Edit: I am not sure "Nothing you do here is recorded or changed in the application" is totally correct so please see my correcting post below.

It needs more investigation to give a definitive answer. One factor is that I believe that AOO remembers the last printer used to print a document and it presumably therefore remembers the printer settings the user applied to that printer. 
Last edited by John_Ha on Thu Jan 17, 2019 6:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RoryOF »

That's what I told him, but he cannot see the "Properties" button on the General tab. I have pointed him to robleyd's screenshot, where Rob has red arrowed the button.
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by John_Ha »

See post above - my edit crossed with your post.

Paper size can be set natively in Windows with Devices and Printers > Printer properties. It is completely application independent.
Clipboard01.gif
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by John_Ha »

I do not think what I posted above is completely correct.

1. Set the paper size to be A4 in my printer.

2. Create a new document > Format > Page > Page ..., and set the page size to Legal which is longer and wider than A4.

3. File > Print.

The printer dialogue shows a paper size of Legal, and not A4 which means that AOO has passed the Legal size to the printer. If I print from other applications while I still have Legal showing in the AOO dialogue, those other applications still see the paper size as A4.

If I go to the Effects tab in the AOO printer dialogue, I have the options of printing it Actual Size, which will spill beyond the A4 page; or I can select Print Document ON ..., and choose A4. I then have the option Scale to fit or print at a specified % of Normal Size.
Clipboard01.gif
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RoryOF
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Re: Print small booklet in AOO Writer

Post by RoryOF »

For a booklet, set /Format /Page : Page tab to half US legal (Europe, A5). Then, when pages are laid out in correct order and it is time to print, use /File /Print, select Page Layout tab and check Brochure. For a Duplex printer, select "All pages" in the Page Sides dropdown on that same tab. Now, click on the General tab, press the "Properties button" to the right of and just below the printer selection window. On its Paper tab, select US Legal (Europe A4) from the paper size dropdown. In the orientation dropdown select Landscape (sometimes Horizontal)~. In the Duplex dropdown select Short-edge binding (sometimes short edge flip).

Press OK, to get back to the main /Format /Print : General tab, and press the Print button.

I have put in brackets the settings for normal European paper size brochure printing,

It must be done in the order given above. Because you have selected half US Legal (Europe A5) as a page size OpenOffice will pass that size to the printer and in the Properties Window you may possibly find the half US legal size preselected (Europe A5) - it may show the half US Legal as a User paper size in actual measurements (Europe A5 should displayed OK). You need to change this to the correct paper size for printing, i.e., US Legal (Europe A4), and make the other adjustments set out above.

If it happens that you wish to select a different paper size for your finished work make the appropriate changes above.

It is worth remarking that some Duplex printers will accept and print several paper sizes, but will only automatically duplex the "normal" office standard paper, US Letter (Europe A4); if so, this is a hardware restriction on the printer, and is not OpenOffice's fault.
 Edit: If things don't work correctly, don't arbitrarily change the settings - come back to the Forum with a description of what happened - what do you get - and we can advise. Solution of most problems is a matter of changing one setting. If you have arbitrarily changed settings, we don't know where we are. 
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