Advanced printer options

Use the Advanced Printer Setup window to override your printer driver settings.

You can specify:
  • How icons are printed
  • Whether the chart is printed in color or black and white
  • How lines on the chart are printed

Viewing printer information

You can find information about the specifications of the current printer in the Reported Printer Information area. The information states:
  • If the printer is color or black and white
  • Whether it prints bitmaps or outlines
  • Its resolution in dots per inch

Specifying general printing options

By default, the Automatic Detection option is selected, and the printer driver settings are used. You can turn on the following options to override the printer driver settings:

Outline Prints icons as outlines.
Bitmaps Prints icons as bitmaps.
Color Prints charts in color.
Monochrome Prints charts in black and white.

Specifying line printing options

Always Draw Thin Lines Draws all lines with a single stroke of the plotter pen, ignoring their widths as set in the chart.
Always Simulate Dotted Lines Dotted lines are plotted automatically, rather than relying on the plotter.

Specifying icon printing options

The Analyst's Notebook chart icon set incorporates transparency so that icons can be used on areas of the chart where the background is not white, for example, in filled event frames and on top of background items. The printing of these icons is complex and on some older computer and printer combinations there might be problems. In particular, the icons might not appear correctly, or printing might be slow. To overcome any such difficulties, two printing options are provided:

Always Simulate Transparent Icons Uses an alternative, simpler means of printing transparent icons. Try this option if the icons do not appear correctly. Printing is slower using this option.
Use Basic Icon Drawing Uses a basic means of printing icons. Try this option if the icons do not appear correctly or if printing is too slow. Printing does not include any transparency, icons, therefore, have a white square surround.

Setting the scale

The page layout for printing takes account of the page size, the page orientation and the margins, borders, and annotations specified elsewhere in the window.

Before you set your scaling settings, you must first consider how many pages you want to fit your chart into, what scale you want to print at, and whether you want to print all or just part of your chart.

  • Adjust -

    You can automatically adjust the size of the printed chart based on one of the following options:

    Best Fit Fits the chart into as few pages as possible, with a scale between 50% and 100%, to minimize the amount of blank space.

    Using Best Fit results in the following page setup:

    • For charts that print on one page at a scale of 100%, no change.
    • For charts that print on two or three pages at a scale of 100%, it reduces the number of pages, and adjusts the scale so.
    • For charts that print on a grid of 2x2 or more pages at a scale of 100%, it reduces the number of pages, and adjusts the scale so.

    A chart that would print on a grid of 2x2 pages at a scale of 100% prints on a single page.

    A chart that would print on a grid of 4x3 pages at 100% prints on a grid of 3x2 pages.

    Fill One Page This option sets the number of pages to 1x1 and adjusts the scale accordingly, so that the entire chart will be printed on one page. If the chart is smaller than 1x1 page, it is enlarged to fit the page.
  • Number of pages - Use these settings to select how many pages you want to fit your chart into.
  • Scale - Use this option to specify printing your chart at a specific scale (compared to the actual size).

    Specify the scale at which the chart prints. Enter the number in the Scale box, or use the up/down arrows to change the value. The default scale is 100%, meaning the chart is printed at the same size as it appears on the screen.

    You can then select Adjust > Pages to adjust the number of pages required to print all the chart at the scale specified.