canadabeau

Ahhhh, that's the key. That's what I was missing. Thank you! I had assumed up to now that a pixel was the same as a dot. Therefore, I thought as long as I knew the printer's resolution (300 dpi), then I simply needed to create an image using the same resolution and it would scale 1:1. Okay so this just became a LOT more difficult to do what I want. I'm going to have to fiddle more with that printer plugin to see if it will help me.

Thanks for the reply! I just downloaded and tried the plugin you suggested, but it's not working very well - keeps hanging on me. Maybe I installed it wrong or soemthing; I'll keep trying. I also tried using Printer+ by Simon Brown, which helps with the page setup (interface between Windows and the printer), but it's still not 100% transparent to me how to get the file to scale properly. Question for you: why do you say I need to understand the relationship between monitor and printer? Isn't the monitor's resolution completely irrelevant to the question? What am I missing here? I just want 1500 pixels to be printed at 300 dpi (for a 5" line), not scaled by a random calculation somehwhere in between the file on my computer and the printer. In my last attempt, a 4.5" line was printed as 4.75" so the scale is 105.5%. Very strange.

Hi all, I've read the various printing to scale questions and have not yet found a satisfactory answer to my (and others') problem. It seems the missing bit of info is regarding canvas size vs paper size and printer margins. I'm hoping the experts here can help set us straight. Q: How can I create an image from scratch, with defined measurements, that will print exactly to those measurements? I.e. How do I print a 5" line created with Paint.NET? Most of the advice regarding printing to a certain size (specifically here and here) talk about DPI settings and monitors, but I think the questions are being misinterpretted by those trying to help. The advisors seem to infer that the person asking the question is trying to print an image that is the same size what they see on their monitor. That is not my question at all. Who even wants to do this? Print at 96 dpi... yuck! So please allow me to explain further. The question is NOT: How do I print something that appears 5" tall on my 27" screen resolved at 96 dpi? The question is: How do I print something that I've created and specified to be exactly 5" long? This is regardless of how it's displayed at any resolution. Let's say I know my printer can print at 300 dpi. I can start with a blank 2000x2000 pixel canvas, working at 300 dpi, and draw a 1500 pixel line. That should print out at 5" right? Nope. First attempt comes out ~7.9" long (and rotated, but that's a different problem for another day). Hmm... Oh I see. It must be Windows' built-in printer dialog that scales the entire canvas to fit the paper size. There's even that pesky "fit to frame" option that doesn't tell me what scaling it's using. Okay, so the obvious answer is to just resize the canvas to be the same size as my paper - in my case I'll use an 8.5 x 11" canvas (or start with 2550 x 3300 pixel blank canvas). That should work! Nope. Now the line prints out ~4.85" long. I think Windows is still resizing the image to fit the page. I'm guessing that this is to account for some inherent printer margins, but I'm not sure. So now back to the original question. How do I print a 5" long line?