Printing what you can't see

[Ray Bennett]

Dear List,
I think I've figured out the answer to the printing question I posed a 
few days ago.

Specifically, the problem was that the data area of interest on my card 
was 800w x 1638h.  The visible window (rect of the stack) that I view 
the card through is usually about 800 x 1000, and I scroll down to the 
bottom parts of the card using a scrollbar placed on the card.

The first card in my stack contains a "printpreview" field, whose rect 
I was printing "into" in order to try and get a scaled version of my 
card out to the printer.  This field was 432w x 720h I reported that I 
was seeing results I didn't expect (which was certainly true).   
Without bothering you with all of the misinformation regarding what I 
did see, here's what I discovered was required to solve the problem.  
If this rehashes some previous list wisdom, I apologize.

The aspect ratio of the printpreview field needs to match the aspect 
ratio of the card your printing as precisely as possible.    So, the 
aspect ratio of my original card was 1638/800 = 2.0475.  The aspect 
ratio of my "printpreview" field was 720/432=1.6667.   The printout was 
cropped proportionally to the differences in the  aspect ratios.   When 
I changed the aspect ratio of the "printpreview" field to match the 
aspect ratio of the card, it worked perfectly.

This, I think, makes pretty good sense.  Am I understanding what I'm 
seeing correctly?

Finally, I know this comment belongs on the improve-rev list, but it 
would be useful if there were a primer on printing in the 
documentation.  There are lots of idiosynchrosies in Rev printing 
behavior (judging from the list and from my own experience) that really 
seem to deserve a document section of their own.

Fwiw.
Ray