Why are the prints small?
Saturday, 28 June, 2008
I have a Canon printer. My black cartridges print fine, but my photo colour cartridge is broken and only prints half the page. That is the left hand side. It still prints out photos but shrinks them to fit that half page scenario.
Kerry Haines, , Australia
 You've jumped to a conclusion Kerry. The fact that the printer shrinks the colour prints would almost certainly have nothing to do with the ink cartridge.
Presumably the printer is doing exactly what it;'s told to do by the PC, so I'd be looking there for the solution.
It could be one of these things:
- You have the wrong printer driver installed.
- The print settings are wrong. (For instance, you have them set to reduce the image or to print on smaller paper than you have in the printer.)
- The problem is with the application that's printing the photos, such as a Paint program.
This is what I'd suggest.
- Go to the Canon web site and download the latest printer drivers for your printer and operating system.
- Delete the printer from your PC.
- Follow the instructions for installing the printer drivers - EXACTLY. (This probably involves disconnecting the printer first.)
- Use the printer control panel to print a test page. (In Windows this is accessed via Control Panel.)
.. Paul Zucker
 Reader solutions
JCPosted: 12/07/2008 re: Why are the prints small? Kerry,Canon printers have a 'Factory Default' setting...built-in.
What you really have to do, is....experiment (play) with yours.
Open every Tab, give it a good read, then, when you think you understand it, apply what you have learnt.
The common 'standard' of Paper-size...is A4 (Letter is roughly the same size.)
Check it out.
Canon also provides this 'function', with their Printers.
If the Color cartridge is printing 'off-set', as you claim it does, then, it is mis-aligned.
Maybe resetting Printer back to "Factory Default" will correct this.
Like Keith (and PZ, the others) have stated......when, in doubt, nothing beats 'reading the Instructions, First'. KeithPosted: 30/06/2008 re: Why are the prints small? Kerry the advice I give to most people in these situations is:-
If all else fails read the instructions. MikePPosted: 30/06/2008 re: Why are the prints small? Sounds as if you have the page orientation wrong.
In printer settings, try changing it to landscape (or portrait if it's already on landscape) and use Print Preview.
Make sur you keep the Maintain Aspect Ratio set |