Printing a Full-Page Image from Paintbrush

ID: Q66898


The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Paintbrush for MS-DOS, versions 2.0, 4.0


SUMMARY

When you print from Microsoft Paintbrush, you should be aware that unless you specifically tell Paintbrush otherwise, it prints your image 1:1 (that is, one pixel on your screen is printed as one dot on the printer). Almost all printers have a much higher resolution than the average VGA monitor, so the picture appears much smaller on paper than on the screen, especially on a laser printer where the image may appear less than two inches square.


MORE INFORMATION

For best printing results in Paintbrush, follow this procedure:

  1. When you create a drawing canvas, select the default size.

    This is usually 551 x 377 for VGA 640 x 480 modes. This gives a drawing the same size as the viewable portion of the Paintbrush screen (the area bordered by the tools, menu bar, palette, and scroll bars). The most common problem is trying to select a screen size of 8.5 x 11 inches or 8 x 10 inches. Remember that Paintbrush is not asking how large you want the printed picture to be, but how large you want the screen to be. If you use inches as the units on this screen, Paintbrush multiplies your printer's resolution by the number of inches you specify and attempts to make a screen of that size.

    For example, if you have a Hewlett-Packard (HP) LaserJet with Paintbrush set up for 320 x 200 256-color mode, and you specify 8 x 10 inches in Paintbrush, Paintbrush will try to create a blank canvas 2400 x 3000 pixels. This size is several times larger than your screen.


  2. Draw your picture. While drawing, keep in mind that any blank space you leave around your picture will show up on the page.

    For example, if you draw a small boat in the middle of your drawing area, and then tell Paintbrush to print 8 x 10 inches, your boat will be a small boat in the middle of the page. Paintbrush cannot tell the difference between your drawing and the blank area around it. When you specify a print size, consider the margins that you have left around the picture on the screen.


  3. From the File menu, choose Print.


  4. If you have followed the above steps, the currently selected units are pixels. Change the units to inches.


  5. Click the Print Proportional box.

    By selecting this option, any change you make to one dimension of the image is automatically made to the other so that the image is still proportional to what you see on the screen.


  6. If you want the picture to be as large as the page, enter 8 inches for the Print Width. Notice that Paintbrush automatically updates the Print Height.

    Note: On some printers, especially dot matrix printers, the horizontal and vertical resolution are NOT the same. If you use one of these printers, you have to multiply the width by the horizontal resolution and the height by the vertical resolution. You can find your printer's horizontal and vertical resolution by looking in the Statistics option in the Help memu.


  7. Print your image.

    Paintbrush only prints portrait, not landscape, so your image appears on the top half of the page only. You can tell Paintbrush to print a full 10.5-inch height, but your picture will be severely disproportionate.


Note: You can't enter a width more than about 8 inches or a height more than about 10.5 inches. All printers have a "hardware margin" of about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch where no printing can occur. If you specify 8.5 x 11 inches, Paintbrush tells you that the drawing is too large for the printer.

Paintbrush may display an error when you specify a size smaller than 8 x 10 inches. If this happens, make sure that you have enough free RAM and that your print buffer is large enough to hold the image. If you barely have enough RAM to create an image of the default size, you probably do not have enough memory to print the image at full size.

Additional query words: image too large memory paint brush 2.00 4.00

Keywords :
Version : MS-DOS:2.0,4.0
Platform : MS-DOS
Issue type :


Last Reviewed: October 28, 1999
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