OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 At least I know most folks monitor this forum on a regular basis. I've got a Inkscape question to ask. I'm trying to figure out why my printer doesn't print things at the same size as I draw them in Inkscape. I'm trying to print some circles at 4.5" diameter and when they print, they are about 1/16" small. They are coming out at 4 7/16" diameter. The project that I'm working on has to have the patterns correct or it throws everything off. I'm using an engineer's 3 sided scale for measuring so I'm fairly sure it's accurate. Can anybody shed light on this? I'd sure love to know what I'm doing wrong. If anything. My printer is a Brother all-in-one color laser printer and it is usually very accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim McDonald Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 Not familiar with the settings in Inkscape, but check at the print dialog box for something like "print actual" or "fit to page". I know that causes a lot of grief on PDF printing. Could be something similar. John B, jr42 and OCtoolguy 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 17 minutes ago, Jim McDonald said: Not familiar with the settings in Inkscape, but check at the print dialog box for something like "print actual" or "fit to page". I know that causes a lot of grief on PDF printing. Could be something similar. Thanks. I'm aware of that but I failed to check that this time. I'll give it another go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 Well, that didn't work. I added a 32nd of an inch to my pattern and printed it and it came out exact. Not sure what's going on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 I don't have inkscape in front of me, but I know that when programming a cnc the measurement of a line (kerf) can be made from the inside, outside or center of the line. Try making the line of your object very thin, resize your object, and print. See if that gets you closer to the size you want. This is assuming your object is a line and not a fill. OCtoolguy and FrankEV 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 52 minutes ago, Dan said: I don't have inkscape in front of me, but I know that when programming a cnc the measurement of a line (kerf) can be made from the inside, outside or center of the line. Try making the line of your object very thin, resize your object, and print. See if that gets you closer to the size you want. This is assuming your object is a line and not a fill. I've the line thickness set a .5mm or. 05mm. Can't remember but it's thin. You may be onto something though. I'll give it a try tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don in brooklin on Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 Did you check under Document properties to make sure you are printing US letter. If I have it set to A4 when I print it will be just a smaller( about 1/4). Not sure if it is Inscape or my Lexmark printer. Don jr42 and OCtoolguy 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wichman Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 Sorry, this is why I gave up printing from Inkscape or Gimp. Too many setting to try to remember to get an exact size print. Add to this that I just tried to print from Inkscape, to see if I could find the settings and guess what, my new latest greatest version of Inkscape for Linux will not print, not even a dialogue box, nothing (even the task manager shows no change in the resources Inkscape is using). Restarted the computer and all. Blech Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 55 minutes ago, don in brooklin on said: Did you check under Document properties to make sure you are printing US letter. If I have it set to A4 when I print it will be just a smaller( about 1/4). Not sure if it is Inscape or my Lexmark printer. Don It's set to 8 1/2 x 11. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WayneMahler Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 I save mine as a PDF and print from that. Maybe this will help you ? OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 (edited) I can't help much, but because of a number of Editing programmes not printing accurately to scale, I usually import my drawing etc into Publisher, with a grid, size it there and print. Always spot on. Edited January 9, 2022 by John B OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fab4 Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 Hi Ray Check this out and see if it will do anything for you hope it plays Fab4 OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadBob Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 (edited) On 1/8/2022 at 11:15 PM, Wichman said: Sorry, this is why I gave up printing from Inkscape or Gimp. Too many setting to try to remember to get an exact size print. I use both Inkscape and Gimp running on Fedora 32 Linux. I've never had a problem printing to the exact size from Inkscape. I never print patterns from Gimp I use it to clean up scans I made or other bitmaped images before tracing them with Inkscape. Edited January 10, 2022 by BadBob OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAIrving Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 Good topic and good discussion. Maybe this will inspire me to try my hand at Inkscape again. So far I have not designed enough patterns to really get into it. The few patterns I have designed I did in PowerPoint and they most certainly did NOT print to scale! That led to a lot of frustration and fiddling with printer controls. OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 I created two 4" circles in Inkscape. One had a stroke width of 0.5 pts and the other 12.000 pts. After creating the circles and stroke widths I had to resize the circles to 4". Then I printed them out and both measure 4". The Z value at the bottom right of the page does the same thing as using the + and - keys. It should not affect the printed size. To verify this, I printed one page at 99% and another page at 24% and both circles measure 4". BadBob and OCtoolguy 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 10 hours ago, Fab4 said: Hi Ray Check this out and see if it will do anything for you hope it plays Fab4 Thanks. It played fine but I will watch it on my pc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 3 hours ago, Dan said: I created two 4" circles in Inkscape. One had a stroke width of 0.5 pts and the other 12.000 pts. After creating the circles and stroke widths I had to resize the circles to 4". Then I printed them out and both measure 4". The Z value at the bottom right of the page does the same thing as using the + and - keys. It should not affect the printed size. To verify this, I printed one page at 99% and another page at 24% and both circles measure 4". You are over my head at this point but it forces me to learn more. Thanks Dan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 9, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 6 hours ago, Dan said: I created two 4" circles in Inkscape. One had a stroke width of 0.5 pts and the other 12.000 pts. After creating the circles and stroke widths I had to resize the circles to 4". Then I printed them out and both measure 4". The Z value at the bottom right of the page does the same thing as using the + and - keys. It should not affect the printed size. To verify this, I printed one page at 99% and another page at 24% and both circles measure 4". Dan, I played around with the stroke width and for me, the line "thickens" toward the inner part of the circle and doesn't make the outer diameter grow or shrink. But after viewing the Youtube that was posted above by Fab4, I played with that setting also and it seems to make sense. On my monitor if I set the zoom at 97% the circle is right on the money at 4.5" both on screen and printed. So that may be the determining factor. Time will tell. Fab4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted January 9, 2022 Report Share Posted January 9, 2022 6 minutes ago, OCtoolguy said: Dan, I played around with the stroke width and for me, the line "thickens" toward the inner part of the circle and doesn't make the outer diameter grow or shrink. But after viewing the Youtube that was posted above by Fab4, I played with that setting also and it seems to make sense. On my monitor if I set the zoom at 97% the circle is right on the money at 4.5" both on screen and printed. So that may be the determining factor. Time will tell. That's odd. On my computer changing the percentage made no difference in the printed pattern. Hmm. Well, I'm glad it's working for you. OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted January 10, 2022 Report Share Posted January 10, 2022 (edited) I export to pictures then use rapid resizer. It cost about $40 a year and is worth it. Edited January 10, 2022 by Fish OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fab4 Posted January 10, 2022 Report Share Posted January 10, 2022 I'm going to add something else that's weird about printing the right size When I was following that video, The only way I could get the correct size after trial and error was to change my Display Setting. Apparently Inkscape was being stretched with the setting I had and not giving me a true measurement went from 1152x864 to 1280x720 (for those who understand this) Make sense??? All I know is that I can print from Inkscape size for size when I set the Zoom at 64% - I don't pretend to understand but I'm happy with the results Fab4 OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fab4 Posted January 10, 2022 Report Share Posted January 10, 2022 13 hours ago, Dan said: That's odd. On my computer changing the percentage made no difference in the printed pattern. Hmm. Well, I'm glad it's working for you. Dan: What is your display setting set at for your computer - just curious - see my post about changing my setting - thanks OCtoolguy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Posted January 10, 2022 Report Share Posted January 10, 2022 20 minutes ago, Fab4 said: Dan: What is your display setting set at for your computer - just curious - see my post about changing my setting - thanks 1920 x 1080 OCtoolguy and Fab4 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCtoolguy Posted January 10, 2022 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2022 10 hours ago, Fab4 said: I'm going to add something else that's weird about printing the right size When I was following that video, The only way I could get the correct size after trial and error was to change my Display Setting. Apparently Inkscape was being stretched with the setting I had and not giving me a true measurement went from 1152x864 to 1280x720 (for those who understand this) Make sense??? All I know is that I can print from Inkscape size for size when I set the Zoom at 64% - I don't pretend to understand but I'm happy with the results Fab4 I tried changing my display settings. Two things happened. Actually only one thing happened. I hated the new setting and the printout remained the same. When I have the circle set at 4.5" my printout is 4 7/16". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadBob Posted January 11, 2022 Report Share Posted January 11, 2022 14 hours ago, OCtoolguy said: I tried changing my display settings. Changing your display settings doesn't have anything to do with printing. I worked in IT for over 30 years. Printers can be a pain to deal with. My educated guess guess is that the problem is either your printer, driver, or printer settings. jr42 and OCtoolguy 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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