Printing Issue - Custom Media Sizes, InDesign CC/Mac Mavericks

[kmpeterson]

Hi all,

I've got a strange problem that I hope someone can provide some insight to.  Perhaps this is a bug, but I'd rather ensure that there isn't something here that I haven't understood.

I have a project that I periodically modify and re-print on custom size media (3.25" x 7.36").  I've used the same Id document and workflows since, probably, Id 2 or 3, updating each time to the latest versions.  The problem may be in the way Id CC interacts with the MacOS X printing system.  The printer in question is a Xerox 8550.

The project is a one page table printed on this particular card stock.  What's happening is that the printable area on the stock isn't being fully used - the top and bottom of the media aren't being printed - thus the top and bottom of the content is being cut off, in a way that wasn't an issue previously.

The printer control panel prompts for and accepts the media size correctly (I believe these printers have checks to ensure media fed matches the printable area; the Phaser engine doesn't like printing "off the paper"). 

Again, the same document has been used for many years, so I've tried the following steps to isolate and remediate the problem:

1. Document Setup: Custom Page Size, verify correct for media.
2. Print dialog: "Page Setup..." format for (custom media size defined for OS X), also verified to be correct for media.
3. Print dialog: "Setup", paper size Width and Height, correct; orientation correct, offset and gap 0p0, scale 100%.
4. Print dialog: PPD correct.
5. Recreated document, re-entering sizes and verifying setup.  No change.
6. Created a test document, with same settings, and a scale extending outside of the printable area.  The specs for (and my experience with) the printer are that the printable area is 5mm from the edge of the paper.  The result of the test is that the content is cut off at 10-11mm from the edge instead. 
7. Exported PDF from Id.  Printed using Preview, same OS X page setup configuration.  Printer prompts for correct media size.  Content in test file prints as expected, to 5mm from media edge.
8. Printed test document from Acrobat XI, using "Actual Size", "Choose paper source by PDF page size", and "Use custom paper size when needed".  Printer prompts for correct media size, content prints as expected, again, to 5mm from media edge.

So, in brief, exported PDF prints properly (and this is a workaround), but it's a pain that Id has this issue.  All software involved is up to date.  I haven't tried to dig into the PPD, as PostScript isn't one of my areas of strength, but I'm reasonably sure it's correct.  I've also tried a similar test using Letter-size paper, and that also prints to 5mm. 

I'd love to get some feedback on this.  Many thanks.

[Steve Werner]

You indicate, but don't say explicitly, that this used to work OK, but is not now, or exactly when it stopped working.

It could be a printer driver issue, especially since you're using a new version of the operating system. I'd go to the Xerox website and see if your printer driver supports Mac OS X 10.9. Try to download a later version of the driver if it's available.

[kmpeterson]

Thanks for your response, and for indicating where I was not clear.

Like whether this is related to moving to InDesign CC or OS X Mavericks - if I knew this, it would be helpful, I understand. 

The printer is supported on OS X 10.9.  Interestingly, the software version installed by Software Update is 2.0.14 whereas that on Xerox's site is 2.0.13.

And, again, this worked the last time I had to deal with this project, which I would guess was with Id CC, and OS X 10.8.  And it works fine if I export a PDF from Id and print  the PDF using either Acrobat XI or Preview.app .  But the inability to print all of the content on the page only when printing directly from Id leads me to this forum.  One question, for example, is whether there are any [other] settings or options printing from Id that might cause this issue. 

There are several other things I can try: reinstalling the printer, using a different computer, recreating the settings on the OS side (all the printer-specific stuff), trying a non-custom media size, comparing the PostScript output from Id and Preview, or probably a few more strategies if I think longer.  But I don't know what is the most productive way to proceed.

[Steve Werner]

Good. It's good you appear to have eliminated the printer driver from the mix.

It easily could be a subtle bug in InDesign CC, and the way it interacts with Mac OS X 10.9. It appears that there will be an update to InDesign before too long which might fix it, or it might not. Subtle bugs are often difficult to test and fix.

In the meantime, because it's unlikely that there will be someone who has that same combination of printer, operating system version and InDesign version, you may just have to go through the testing yourself. You have a list of things to test which may help sort it out. These things are usually somewhat painful to figure out because of the the complexity of software which interacts with each other.

Also, this being the holiday season, a lot of the regular participants here are missing for a few more days.

Good luck!

[Peter Spier]

Did you upgrade the OS after installing CC? If so, you might want to reinstall ID.

[kmpeterson]

Guys,

Thanks for your insight.  I believe that I've solved the problem.

Before sending a bug report to Adobe, I decided to try another (custom) media size.  I didn't go through all the steps to make the document setup or printing exactly like those I'd been working on, and my first attempt to recreate the issue failed - that is, I printed to a different size media and it worked correctly.

So I backtracked.  Here's what I think the difference is: I have a custom document size defined in Id.  In addition, I had an OS-defined document size that is the same as this for other applications; in the print dialog, I used the "Page Setup..." to set the OS environment for printing, to the same size.  That is what broke my workflow.

For my printer, it doesn't matter at all apparently what the Page Setup size is - if the Print > Setup dialog is set to "Custom" and the paper size is specified, the printer will prompt for and print on the desired media size, correctly.  So, by default I believe the Page Setup is set for Letter - and printing works with the expected 5mm border, on my correct (smaller) media size if it is set to Letter.  Printing does not work, leaving instead a 11mm border (well, margin) if the media size in Page Setup is the same size as the actual media (tested also with this second custom paper size).  So, it looks like the margin chosen in Page Setup is perhaps added to the margin enforced by the printer.

Bottom line: the warning not to use "Page Setup..." or "Printer..." is actually relevant.  [Smacks forehead] 

I guess if you ask the question (i.e., vary the process) enough times, the answer pops out.  Hopefully, anyone else who has used a similar workflow setting and has an OS custom paper size setting active will benefit from this go around.  I think it's still an unexpected result, and I'll file a bug still, but this does solve my problem

[Steve Werner]

I'm glad you got it sorted. Thanks for sharing your answer.

[XsyntaX]

I experienced the very same problem when I upgraded from 10.8 to Mavericks. Indesign CC scaled my print jobs up around 16%. I also have a custom media size that I print on and have various pieces that I print to that paper size. If I set the page size in Indesign to that custom size the jobs come out as expected. But if I use the original files where their page sizes reflect the actual peice size the jobs will be scaled up 16%.

I know this is probably affects only a small amount of people and probalby will not be patched as I was on the phone and chat with Adobe for 1-2hrs. and the usual end of the conversation was to re-install Indesign and the print drivers. I've asked if this was a known issue and it is not. Hoepfully this can be resoved with a patch, as it will be a great deal of work to re-size all of my marketing pieces to that paper size.

My printer unfortuately does care what is defined in the page setup dialog box and I cannot use your work-around. My problem still exists.

[kmpeterson]

Glad to find out that I wasn't the only one with this problem. 

So, even when the correct size is defined in the Id Print dialog (Setup > Paper Size > Custom), your printer still will request the "standard" size set in the Page Setup dialog?  I thought I had the most fussy printer drivers.  Sorry that didn't help.

[XsyntaX]

@kmpeterson

I wonder if there is some issue with interfacing the Xerox printers. Mine is a Xerox Phaser 7800. Your work-around does work if every piece I create is built on that custom paper size, but I cannot build all the marketing collateral at that page size as there are magazine ads and so forth that need to be built for export at a specific page size but also need to be printed on that custom paper size for review.

I have a help ticket (I have never had one resolved in the 5 years submitting them) with Adobe and maybe they will devolop a patch of some kind.

On a side note: I have a workable solution thus far but is not how I would like my workflow to exist. If you set page scaling to 16% the document will be printed very very close to the intended size on whatever custom media you determine in page setup.

[kmpeterson]

Interesting.  I did find that I could export as PDF and those would print correctly.  That was the workaround I used before I realized the Page Setup dialog was causing the issue...

[AlmarPrinting]

I've been battling the same issue ever since the Mavericks update.  I was on CS6 at the time I ran the update, and I couldn't get anything to print at the correct size to our Xerox machines, spent quite a bit of time on Apple chat support and bugging Xerox and couldn't figure it out.  Updated to CC and it's gotten only somewhat better.  If I print to a standard paper size as defined by InDesign, say US Letter or Tabloid, the print comes out measuring right.  If I print to any custom size, all bets are off and it prints unpredictably, I think to try and fit what it imagines is the real page size.  And with the page size set to 'custom' I get only part of the image—I think it's cropping it to what it links the live area of a US Letter should be.  This has been the most maddening software update I can recall because I work in a print shop and we do a LOT of printing on nonstandard sizes—12.375 x 18.5 and 11.4 x 17.4 in particular, all the time (to a J75 and a Nuvera).  If anyone can clue me in to a fix, I'm all ears.  I end up printing things to the closest standard size and then jacking with the X-Y shift to get it to hit the sheet in the right place, which makes setting up a job often as time-consuming as printing it.

[XsyntaX]

For what its worth, I've been trouble shooting this issue with Adobe / Xerox / Apple for some time now. Here are my findings so far:

--------------------------------------------------Adobe's final response after a very long help ticket--------------------------------------------------------

This Email is in regards to the case related to the adobe application and Printing issue ,

As checked we were able to see that application  is able to create the document with correct size , when checked within Adobe Pdf properties the size was showing as per document specification and when we tried to print the same , the document was showing the same values carried forwarder to the printer and in the preview it was showing the same specific setting of the document size in the printer previewer

It was during the printing process the same value are not being calculated correctly as per our interaction ,  you were able to use the same in the previous version of Mac  10.8. 5 , please check if there is any update available for the 10.9 version of mac and if it would work on the same ,we would request you to contact your printer help support for the same we are leaving the case open and would request you to call us back if there is any further issue  on  800 833 66 87 

Thanks and Regards

Jatinder

Adobe Technical Support

--------------------------------------------------Xerox's response, after an escalated level 2 ticket--------------------------------------------------------

Here the Decline from 3rd Level Engineering.

2nd Level Reference #: 19458297

Customer Name: VDB REAL ESTATE

Product Model: Phaser 7800

Problem Summary: Scale is incorrect when printing PDFs on custom size paper in OS X 10.9

Decline Reason: App/3rd party Issue

Note: I tested using the included process steps:

STEPS TO REPRODUCE-

1. I tested using a PDF that was 6" x 8.5".
2. In Acrobat or Adobe Reader, choose File > Print, go to Page Setup and create a custom page size of 8" x 9.5".
3. In the Acrobat dialog, set the size to "Actual size".
4. Print this to the device, note that the image is about 7" x 10".
5. Interestingly, in the Acrobat dialog, if "Choose paper source by PDF page size" is selected, the previewed page size is not that of the document, but instead shows 10.13" x 7.17".  This size will change if different printers are selected.
6. Scaling is not an issue when printing to standard page sizes.

I was able to recreate the issue on a Mac running OS 10.9.1 using the Xerox 7800 print driver. I then tested on Mac OS 10.9.1 using a generic Postscript driver and also recreated the issue.  This indicated that this is not a Xerox driver issue.  I then tested on a Mac OS 10.8.5 using the same Xerox 7800 driver version and it worked as expected without scaling the image.

Mac OS 10.8.5 uses CUPS version 1.6.2 for printing where 10.9.1 uses CUPS version 1.7.  I believe this is a CUPS issue and you will need to work with Apple to resolve it.

You may appeal this decision by replying to this email and providing appeal details.

Regards,

Faye Hanley

Technical SPAR Administrator

Technical Escalation Support Office

Xerox Corporation

400 Main Street, Suite 2040

Saint John, NB, E2K 4N5

Phone: 1-888-380-9422 Opt 4

--------------------------------------------------Apple's response, after an escalated ticket--------------------------------------------------------

While using 10.92 with Xerox Phaser 7800DN (2.94.1 PPD - Installed via Software Update), PDF at a custom page size was sent to spool folder via Preview was correctly sized, however the document produced by Adobe Reader appears to be icorrect. When using Preview the PDF printed to a custom page size at 100% scale comes out the proper size.

Carol West

Apple

P.S. If you wish to reach me regarding this case, please contact me at 1-877-388-0879 Ext. 85789

**this is a paraphase of what the engineer (Clay) sent back to Carol West who was assisting in my help ticket. She was not allowed to send me the engineer's findings in email, she was only allowed to read it to me over the phone as I typed it out.

Basically go back to Adobe and ask for help there. I guess at least the circle is closed as I am back to where I started.

[Christopher Jennings]

I have a Xerox 7800 with somewhat of the same issue -- it shrinks files printed from InDesign and Acrobat when printing to custom page sizes (6 x 9 and 4 x 6). It appears to shrink them to the margins of the printer. I can't pinpoint when exactly it started because I rarely print to these sizes, but I called Xerox today and it's a known issue that they said "Adobe has a fix for, call them". Does anyone know if there is a fix for this issue yet? I've tried printing from two machines in our office: one is running 10.9.4 and CS6; the other is running 10.9.4 and using the creative cloud.

[kmpeterson]

I'd love to hear about a fix as well!  But I haven't...

My workaround was to have the Mac OS Printer Driver page size set to a standard, and have ID print to your custom size.  I noticed last time I had this issue that if I attempted to save a print preset while in this process, the printer would not request the correct (custom) size media, but would request the standard size.  So, use a generic preset, and take care to set the parameters properly each time you print.  (Or print to PDF and - I found that I could use Adobe Reader to print to the printer, along with Preview.  I think if you use that workflow, you do need to have the correct page size set in the driver.)

[ralphsmith]

This appears to be the result of a corrupt installation, affecting the application preferences. I called Adobe support this morning and gave control of my computer to the support representative. He was able to reset InDesign at which point I had to recreate my custom print profile. After restarting InDesign, everything printed at 100% as it should. I believe the Adobe InDesign preferences were discarded. The Adobe representative should be forthcoming with the exact steps he took to resolve the issue as I directed him to this forum page and requested his valued input here.

Equipment / OS / software / printer: Mid-2014 Mac Pro / OS 10.9.4 / InDesign CC / Epson Stylus PRO 4800 via ColorBurst 9 RIP.