Page Printing Tips & Tricks

When working with Print Conductor, along with other file types, you can add various documents to the print list. You can make different settings for your documents. Documents usually consist of pages. In this article, we will look into the settings available for pages. They include page scaling, watermarking, page numeration, printing crop marks, printing several pages on one sheet, page auto-rotation, alignment & offset, color mode, paper size, and more. You'll find these in Settings > Advanced: Page layout, Text watermark, and Multiple pages per sheet sections. 

Select paper size

You can set specific page size for your printed documents. By default, it is set to As in printer – your selected printer controls the paper size. To find which paper size is currently set in your printer, check the Printer Properties:

 To change paper size via Print Conductor, use the Paper size option:

The range of available page formats will depend on your printer model. If you want the program to select the most appropriate paper format for each file automatically, change the default setting As in printer to Page size based. 

When Page size based is selected, Print Conductor identifies the page size dimensions of a document. It chooses the best paper format that would match the page at a scale of 1:1 without large margins around the page. If a perfect match is not possible, then the closest possible option is used.

To set paper size:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Paper size setting (start typing "paper size" in the search bar);
3. Select the necessary option or paper format from the dropdown list;
4. Click OK.

Change color mode

In the Advanced settings, you can set color or grayscale (black & white) printing. 

• Grayscale (grayscale mode)
• Color (color mode)
• As in printer (as set in your Printer Properties)

If you have any additional color properties set in your printer properties (e.g., RGB or CMYK color mode selected) or a saved color profile, use As in printer option to keep these settings intact.

To select color mode:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Color mode setting (start typing "color" in the search bar) and change it;
3. Click OK.

Add text watermark: page numbers, filenames or text to printed pages

1. Add page numbers

You can automatically paginate documents or add other information to printed pages. To add page numbers when printing PDF or other document types, use the Text watermark feature with default template {srcfilepageno}:

Check the box next to Enabled to activate it. Additionally, you can change page number parameters to adjust pagination:

• Font (adjust stylistic attributes of a font: font type, color, size)
• Template (set by default {srcfilepageno} stands for source file page number)
• Alignment (X-axis: Left, Center, Right; Y-axis: Top, Center, Bottom)
• Margins (X and Y-axis offset: set any value; points equal to 0.01 inch)
• Rotation (adjust the angle of watermark rotation, degree)
• Background (select color behind the text)
• ZOrder (set watermark position, Z-axis: In the foreground or In the background)
• Ignore hard margins on page (ignore the printable area used by some printers and take into account the dimensions of the paper sheet only)

2. Place custom watermark to page center

Using the Text watermark feature, you can insert not only page numbers but add any other text onto printed pages and customize it your way.

Here you can just replace the default Template value with your text. You can also adjust the watermark by changing the font, watermark alignment, margins, background, and rotation.

3. Add filename to header or footer

You can use a template with various document data, including a filename as a text watermark. Add a new template or replace the default one with any other predefined template. To do it, go to Text watermark settings and click the {=} icon:

4. Set color background for text watermark

You can change the background color of a watermark. The selected background color will fill a rectangle behind the text watermark.

5. Add item's index number as a text watermark

With the macro Item # in list, you can add each item's index number (#) in the List of Documents as a watermark. This macro adds item numbers on each page of a document as a text watermark. This way, you'll quickly see the sequence of all documents after printing them.

List of all available text watermark macros:

You can combine them together (and even with your own text) to create a complex text watermark. For example: {srcfilename}.{srcfileext}. Some templates take data from the source file metadata. So if some data is missing in the file itself – a certain template may be omitted in the watermark.

To place more than one watermark at the same time, you can simply add a new one by pressing Enter in the Template field.

To add page numbers, custom text, or template as a watermark:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Text watermark section (start typing "text watermark" in the search bar) and enable it;
3. Adjust the required parameters using Text watermark settings; 
4. Click OK.

Set auto rotation of pages

Print Conductor has an ability to auto rotate pages automatically and align them to the sheet of paper. You can simply enable this setting and not worry about changing the page orientation – portrait or landscape – for each printed document or image. 

To turn on auto rotation of pages, find the Auto rotate setting and enable it. Choose which way the pages should be rotated – Clockwise or Counterclockwise. The program will automatically detect the best page orientation for each document and rotate it to landscape or portrait. 

To automate page rotation:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Auto rotate setting (type "auto" in the search bar) and check it;
3. Click OK.

Set page orientation

You can manually set orientation of pages to portrait or landscape. Portrait and landscape refer to different orientations of the paper – whether it should be printed vertically or horizontally.

Available options are:

• Portrait (set vertical orientation)
• Landscape (set horizontal orientation)
• As in document (keep the same as the document's orientation)
• As in printer (keep page orientation as set in Printer Properties)

To change page orientation to landscape or portrait:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Page orientation setting (type "orientation" in the search bar);
3. Select the desired option;
4. Click OK.

Print as image

In Print as image mode, Print Conductor converts documents into a raster graphic (bitmap) image before printing. If you have any issues with print quality (e.g., text characters look corrupted, or the overall quality looks poor), try this feature.

To increase the printout quality:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Print as image setting (type "print as" in the search bar) and check it;
3. Click OK.

Set rasterization resolution

You can control Rasterization resolution value (DPI, Dots Per Inch) which affects quality of files when they are rasterized before printing. This setting applies only when printing in Print as image mode. Resolution can be set in a range between 72 to 2400. We recommend:

• 300 DPI for text documents;
• 600 DPI or higher – for high-quality images or photos.

We don't recommend setting DPI lower than 150 (the printout may have low visual quality) or higher than 1200 (processing may take a lot of system resources and time).

To set DPI for printing:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Rasterization resolution setting (type "rasterization" in the search bar);
3. Define the DPI value;
4. Click OK.

Add crop marks

Crop marks (cut marks or trim marks) are thin lines printed in the corners of your document sheets of paper to show where to trim the paper. Print Conductor can add crop marks when printing images or PDF files. Find Print Crop Marks in the Advanced settings to use this feature:

To print crop marks:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Print crop marks setting (type "crop" in the search bar) and check it;
3. Click OK.

Set scale mode

You can set page sizing to define how the printouts will look on the sheets of paper. Adjust it using the Scale mode feature: 

Available options are:

Custom page zoom

With Zoom level, you can set any percent of pages' original size. This setting allows you to fine-tune the scaling of each page, even if pages in a document have different size. 

The Zoom level option is available for HTML and Excel files too. You'll also find it in these sections of Advanced Settings:

• HTML format
• Excel format

To adjust page scaling:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Scale mode setting (start typing "scale" in the search bar) and change it;
3. Click OK.

Adjust page alignment & offset

With Print Conductor, you can adjust and fine-tune the positioning of the print on a sheet of paper. It can be done via Alignment and Offset settings. You can use them as standalone settings (separately) or both together.

1. Alignment 

By default, a printed page or image is centered. If you want to make it off-center, you can select an alignment option in the Advanced settings:

Adjust a page's position on the sheet of paper by changing one or both Horizontal alignment or Vertical alignment options using parameters:

• Center
• Right 
• Left
• Top
• Bottom

2. Horizontal & vertical offset

This setting shifts the page position vertically and horizontally. By default, both options are set to 0, which is the origin of coordinates. Zero (0) is the starting point and is located in the top left corner of a page or image. You can change them to any value. Units equal to 0.01 inch. You can use both positive and negative values, for example:

• Horizontal offset: 150
• Vertical offset: -50

3. Alignment + offset

You can combine offset with page alignment. This is how it works: when alignment is set, e.g., to Center and Right, you can additionally shift the page or image relative to the starting point. Below is a scheme illustrating the starting points:

To adjust printout positioning on the sheet of paper:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Horizontal alignment and Vertical alignment values (start typing "align" in the search bar) and change them;
3. Find the Horizontal offset and Vertical offset values (start typing "offset" in the search bar) and modify them;
4. Click OK.

Change printer resolution

Most printers support high, medium, low, and draft resolutions, and you can set this directly in Print Conductor. These properties are handy when you want a quick version, or draft, of your documents for proofing, or a slower, but high-quality version for release. To do it, change the Print resolution in the Advanced tab:

• As in printer (as set in your Printer Properties)
• High (print at a high-quality level)
• Medium (print at a standard quality level)
• Low (print at a low-quality level)
• Draft (print low-quality draft output)

To change printer resolution settings:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Printer resolution setting (start typing "printer" in the search bar) and change it;
3. Click OK.

Vectorize text

You can use the Vectorize text feature so that the program converts text characters into outlines (curves) before printing. This option may come in handy when you are printing to a vector PDF using a virtual printer. The output file will be readable, but the file recipient will not be able to copy or edit the text from it. So if you print to a PDF printer (like Universal Document Converter or Acrobat), you'll get a vectorized PDF but with non-searchable text.

To use this feature, enable Vectorize text setting in the Advanced tab:

To convert text into curves:

1. Go to Settings > Advanced;
2. Find the Vectorize text setting (start typing "vectorize" in the search bar) and check it;
3. Click OK.

See also:

How To
Get other useful guides on using Print Conductor and see many other useful how-tos, solutions, tips & tricks on effective batch printing. You'll find out how to import & export files, manage print lists, configure document and page settings, set up service pages, and so much more.