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Many documents, while vertically quite short are a bit too wide for a printed page, even on the landscape setting. The standard scale-to-fit-page is sub-optimal under these circumstances, particularly when the information is already close to the minimum acceptable size.
If the document is of very
different proportions to the page's printable area, then the scale on a single page is maximised by printing it diagonally. Hence, I propose this as an extra printer setting.
This would work best where the document is formed of vector data; bitmaps may suffer aliasing artifacts if at a resolution close to that of the printer.
Diagonally longer
http://www.explorer...explodedDiagram.gif
On a Twilight blog posting for some odd reason. [nineteenthly, Apr 08 2010]
Same again
http://s78.photobuc...s_guns/8b50ac2c.jpg
This is another example [nineteenthly, Apr 08 2010]
[link]
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Lateral thinking, abeit with a diagonal implementation. [+] |
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If the feed mechanism and paper path of the printer were wider, then as well as allowing printing on larger sheets (e.g. A3 instead of A4), which would be very useful sometimes, such a wider printer would also be able to accept standard A4 sheets inserted at an angle. Perhaps the feed tray could be rotated by a stepper motor to automate this. The other advantage of this arrangement would be that the print heads would operate as normal, so there would be no issue with aliasing. |
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I do like this, but i can't think of many examples where it's useful. Maybe with a diagram projected isometrically. |
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I'm not sure what you mean nineteenthly. I think you may have misunderstood what I meant - because I'm always finding that a quick spreadsheet is too wide or similar - there's no shortage of examples for me. |
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But while thinking about your comment, it occurred to me that an unwritten assumption is that documents are rectangular. For some documents this isn't the case. For these documents the idea works at least as well (and potentially even better), although maybe with a bit more processing required. |
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This assumes that the documents have a high aspect ratio, that is are very wide compared to their height. |
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On an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, the break point is a printable area 3.15" tall. Any taller than that, and the width drops below 11 inches, and you would be better off printing in landscape. |
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(At 12" wide, you get 2.01" useable height, at 13, .9) |
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This therefore, would mostly be useful for single lines of text or similar, not full documents. |
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//This assumes that the documents have a high aspect ratio, that is are very wide compared to their height.// |
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Not really; documents which are very tall compared to their width are also catered for. (:-P)
Anyway, I say as much in the first sentence of the idea. |
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//This therefore, would mostly be useful for single lines of text or similar, not full documents.// |
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You still work in inches? How archaic. |
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I haven't checked your rectangle size calculations, but 3.15 inches (~=8 cm) is quite a bit more than a sentence[1]. 'Full documents' (or actually, the bit to be printed) are often less than that. That could be seventeen 4.5 mm rows on a spreadsheet, for instance. |
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//Any taller than that, and the width drops below 11 inches, and you would be better off printing in landscape.// |
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I assumed that it could go without saying that if the diagonal gives a smaller scale than axis-aligned, then the software should do the right thing. Apparently, it did need saying. |
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[1] Unless you write like my boss I suppose. |
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What i had in mind was a diagram such as the ones whither i'm about to link. |
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I wasn't criticizing, merely commenting. And I still work in inches for paper size, since what I have access to are all exact measurements in english, not metric. My machinery designs are another story. |
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And I should mention that those diagonals were zero margin, so the actual printable area would be slightly smaller depending on the printer.
You're right that 3.15" is not trivial, but that's also the break even point. The extreme limit is only about 13.8 or so, with no height, so the total width gain is not huge. The tradeoff between limits your document length. |
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Come to think of it, i'm completely wrong! |
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The best images to print this way are ones whose aspect ratio is a long way from being square, such as a panoramic view of a landscape, or a fairly tall web page such as this one. |
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this works on the assumption that the printer can print close to the paper margins AND since the standard documentation format is often though as a rectangle things like headers footers page numbers etc would have to be re configured into a diamond shape. |
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Finally, good luck putting these in a 3 ring binder or what not and using them conveniently. |
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It's an interesting notion but I'm not sure how useful it is |
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I don't think it does. If a sheet of paper is two-thirds as high as it is wide, the diagonal is four-fifths as long again as its height. If a document starts with a centred title shorter than its ordinary width followed by several blank lines, it's narrower at the top. The other end may be another matter. I still think images and diagrams stand a better chance of being a suitable shape than most documents, but webpages in particular are more likely to be of such a shape and nowadays those are more likely to emerge from a printer. |
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A display which did this could hike itself up to the next step in resolution. |
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