Layout Dialog


Use the Page Layout dialog to specify orientation, position, and scale of the current image when it is printed on the current printer. You can also select Rotation and Mirror of the image.

The dialog is opened if you press Page Layout in the Print dialog.

You can also open the dialog from the Montage dialog to set layout properties for a single image object.

Orientation

Landscape
Horizontal axis along the long paper edge.
Portrait
Horizontal axis along the short paper edge.
Best Fit
Let EasyCopy determine the best orientation from the aspect ratio of the input image. This is the default.

The maximum image size depends on the orientation.
Best Fit is the orientation that gives the largest image.

Rotation

You can rotate the image any angle relative to its orininal appearance (you can also rotate the image in the Edit menu). The rotation angle is counter-clockwise. You can specify a negative angle to get a clockwise rotation.

You can decrease or increase the rotatin angle by 90 degrees using the buttons Rotate 90.

The Rotation option refers to the image, whereas the Orientation option refers to the paper. Note, however, that the paper will follow the rotation if orientation is Best Fit.

Mirror

The mirror functions available in the Edit menu are also available in this dialog.

Click on Horizontal Mirror to mirror the image horizontally, or click on Vertical Mirror to mirror the image vertically. (click again to get back to the previous appearance).

Unit of Measurement

Choose among these units:

Inches
Centimeters
Millimeters
Points
We define a point "the PostScript way", namely 1/72 inch. This is almost the same as a traditional "typographical" point.
Pixels (Dots)
This will give a measure in units of dots for the currently selected printer.

Position by Alignment

Horizontal
Left
Center
Right

Vertical
Top
Center
Bottom

You can specify a relative position of the image on the page by means of Horizontal and Vertical alignment (alternatively, you can specify an absolute position - refer to Offset below).

Left, Right, Top, and Bottom alignment refer to the printer's margins (the printable area). Center alignment, however, refers to the center of the page. This is not necessarily the same as the center of the printable area. This implies that the maximum scale factor normally is less than 100% if you choose Center alignment.

Position by Offset

You can specify an absolute position of the image on the page by entering the coordinates of the top left corner (alternatively, you can specify a relative position - refer to Alignment above).

If you type an offset value, which is out of range, or in combination with the current image size would cause (parts of) the image to be positioned outside the printable area, the offset is changed to the alignment that best fits the intended offset.

A Top Offset value will, when Adaptive Page Size in the Print dialog is toggled on, meet the need for optimized handling when the media type is fanfold paper.

Scale

You can specify the size or scale of the printed image in different ways:
Width, Height
Type the absolute size of the printed image (in the selected units).

If you change Width or Height when Maintain Aspect Ratio is enabled the other is automatically updated.

 
Pixel Scale
You can specify the scaling of the image be specifying the number of printer dots per input pixel. This is called pixel scale. You can use this to control the image size relative to the image displayed on the screen.

Example:
An image of 340 x 252 pixels displayed on a screen at 75 dpi occupies 4.53 x 3.36 inches (or 115 x 85 millimeters). To print it at the same size (4.53 x 3.36 inches) on a 600 dpi printer you can specify pixel scale 600/75 = 8.

Metric Scale
Some image file formats support metric size information, for example in terms of a resolution (pixels per inch). If metric size information is available you can specify the size of the image as a metric scale factor.
 
Metric scale options are only available if the input file contains metric size information. If you specify a metric scale that exceeds the page size the image is clipped.
Page Scale
In this field you can specify the size of the printed image relative to the printable area.

You may also use the slider. Its rightmost position corresponds to 1.0 (maximum size within the printable area. This is the default image size.

 
1:1
Press this button to get 1:1 metric scale.
 
Fit to Page
Press this button to get best relative fit (100% on the slider).

Fit to Printable Area
This check button changes the behaviour of the Fit to Page button. When the button is checked Fit to Page will fit inside the printable area otherwise it will fit to the entire page.

Aspect Ratio
The image is by default printed in the original aspect ratio. If you want to stretch the image you must
  1. Disable Maintain Aspect Ratio.
  2. Specify image size explicitly (Width and Height).
Maintain Aspect Ratio is automatically restored if you change the image size by means of Scale or Pixel Scale.

Margins

All printers have a "dead zone" around the edges where you cannot print. These margins constitute the printable area.

The margins impose limits on the image position and size. No part of the image can be outside the margins.

Copyright © 2005, AGI (autoGraph international), www.augrin.com.