Brochure printing issue

[James3359]

I attach a document which I hope will illustrate a problem I encounter from time to time when printing brochures with NeoOffice. With this document I normally go through the following steps. Choose File::Printer Settings. Click 'Cancel' in the native Page Setup dialog, and select Brochure in the Printer Settings dialog and click OK. Click the Page Preview button and then the Print Options button to bring up the Print Options dialog. This shows the pages printing correctly side by side on a landscape sheet. If I click OK, however, and then choose File::Print… the pages print out side by side at the top of a portrait page.

To get the correct setting I need to bring up the Print Options dialog again, select Portrait in the format section, and click OK - and then bring up the Print Options dialog again, select Landscape and click OK. After I have done this then it prints correctly.

Are you able to reproduce this problem. Am I doing something wrong? From my point of view the bug is that the Print Options dialog shows me that Landscape Format will be used when in fact Portrait Format is going to be used. (NeoOffice 3.1.1 Patch 1)

[pluby]

I cannot reproduce this problem. In fact, when I switch to the Page Preview window, brochure printing works fine even if I skip displaying of the Print Options dialog.

What I did notice was that your document has very narrow margins. Is it possible that your printer has wider minimum margins? If so, that would force the OpenOffice.org code to try to adjust the document to fit the printer's more restricted margins and that, in turn, might be why you need to open the Print Options dialog twice.

Patrick

[James3359]

Hmm. Tricky. What you can't reproduce you can't be expected to cure.

I have changed the margins and attach the result. For me it still has the same problem. If I simply choose Print and choose to print Preview I get the result shown in the picture file. I am attempting to print two A5 pages side by side on A4 landscape.

[pluby]

Interestingly, with your second sample document I can reproduce the problem.

I think I found a way to avoid the problem and it actually involves less steps than before:

1. Just to be safe, quit NeoOffice and restart to clear all print settings.

2. Open your document and do *not* select the File :: Print Settings menu. This is the key point: in NeoOffice 3.1.1 you should skip this step.

3. Like before, press the Print Preview toolbar button and then press the Print Options toolbar button. Also like before, press the OK button in the dialog that appears.

After doing the above (essentially skipping the File :: Print Settings menu step, I cannot reproduce the problem. Does the same happen for you?

Patrick

[James3359]

I'm glad you have been able to reproduce the problem. It's not just me then...

I've followed your steps through but still get the same thing pages printed side by side at the top of a portrait oriented sheet (even though the Print Options dialog shows them correctly side by side on landscape).

Also, even if your suggestion had worked, it would leave me with no way of telling/checking whether the Printer Settings are to print in brochure mode or not.

[pluby]

The bad news is that it appears that the OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 is very broken as I found no way to avoid this problem in OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 or 3.2.1. I am not sure what changed starting in OpenOffice.org 3.1.1, but it appears that when a document is printed with in Preview mode, it will not notice that the Brochure checkbox in the Printer Settings has been checked.

I am not sure if I can fix this OpenOffice.org bug but I may have found a workaround. Can you follow the normal steps that you have been using (for other people the steps are in this NeoWiki article) with only one change: when you display the Print Options dialog, change the orientation to Portrait and click the OK button. Then, display the Print Options dialog a second time and change the orientation back to Landspace and click the OK button.

For me, toggling the orientation in the Print Options dialog seems to get the OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 code to recognize that it needs to do Brochure printing. Does my workaround work for you?

Patrick

[James3359]

Patrick, I think the problem may have existed before 3.1.1 One of my difficulties is that because the whole process is complex anyway, I have found it hard to get to a reliably reproducible recipe for the bug.

My practice for some time now has been to assume that if at the Print Options stage I see side by side pages on a landscape sheet, then I need to switch the format to Portrait and click OK, and then call up the Print Options again and switch the format to Landscape again and click OK. In other words I am not trusting the Print Options dialog display to be correct when it shows side by side pages on a Landscape sheet.

Thanks for giving time to this which has bugged me in a minor way for a while. At least I now know it is not something I am doing wrong.

If I was able to run OOo on my machine I'd try and reproduce the error and submit a bug, but I'm not confident to produce a report from my NeoOffice experience.

[pluby]

[pluby]

[James3359]

Yes. It has been a reliable workround.

[pluby]

I think I have found the place in the OpenOffice.org code where the Print Options dialog triggers the print code to recognize that the Brochure print option is set. While you still have to open the Print Options dialog, you should now be able to press the OK button without changing anything.

Can you install the following test patch and tell us if the opening the Print Options dialog once, not changing any values in that dialog, and pressing the OK button reliably results in the the File :: Print menu or Print toolbar button to properly rotate the content when brochure printing is enabled?:

Intel:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-1-Test-12-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-1-Test-12-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick

[pluby]

Ignore my last post. Shortly after I posted that test patch I realized that I could tweak the OpenOffice.org code to so that you do not need to open the Print Options dialog at all.

Can you install the following test patch and tell us if brochure printing works when you skip opening the Print Options dialog and select the File :: Print menu or Print toolbar button when in Preview mode?:

Intel:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-1-Test-13-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-1-Test-13-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick

[James3359]

Patrick this seems to work for me now. I need to choose File::Printer Settings… to bring up the Printer Options dialog and select the brochure option. Then if I print from normal view I get two pages side by side at top of portrait sheet. If I print from Page Preview I get two pages side by side on landscape sheet. As you say, I do not need to bring up the Print Options dialog. This looks like a great fix - I can't at the moment think of any unintended consequences. Thank you very much for this.

Incidentally, if I choose Landscape A4 in the native Page Setup dialog that appears first when choosing Printer Settings… and click OK, and then select Brochure in the Printer Options dialog that changes the page format to A4 Landscape and screws up my layout, but if I then correct my page format using Format::Page… (A5, Portrait) and then print from the normal view it also prints correctly (side by side pages on landscape sheet).

[Am I the only person who finds it confusing that a Printer Settings… menu item brings up a Printer Options dialog, while another "Print options page view" button from the Page Preview toolbar brings up a dialog called Print Options? Is the name of the Printer Options dialog part of the underlying OOo code, or could it be changed to match the name of the menu item which calls it up?]

[pluby]