How to Print Borderless
To print photos or documents without a white margin can be quite a challenge. Some printers from well-known manufacturers support full-bleed printing, but users have to be aware of the differences between laser and inkjet printers. Laser printers in particular often cannot print borderless. Multifunction devices, on the other hand, support this function more often. Before you print borderless, it is important that the printer settings are adjusted.
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To consider before buying a printer:
Even after reducing the print margin to zero in the printer settings, most printers cannot print completely borderless. There are only few printer models that can actually implement this function. Most of these models are inkjet and multifunction devices. Laser printers seldomly support borderless printing for technical reasons. If you want to print borderless every now and then, you have to be informed about the technical capabilities of the printer you want to purchase. Relevant information can be found on the respective product page of the manufacturer or in the user manual. Borderless printing basically means that the printer can enlarges a document to a print size that it is slightly larger than the paper itself. The area of the image that protrudes over the edges of the paper is not printed.
Borderless Printing with Word, Adobe Reader or Photoshop
Word
Most programs provide their own individual print settings. It is necessary to make individual adjustments. In Word, borderless printing can be achieved by setting the page margins to 0 under "file" and "page setup".
Adobe Reader
To print borderless with Adobe Reader, you have click the "file" tab and select "print". Select your printer from the drop-down menu. Now click on "properties" and select "borderless printing". Click "OK" to save your settings.
Photoshop
InDesign, Photoshop and others popular design programs have their own print settings. If you want to print borderless on an A4 format, it is first necessary to select the right paper and quality setting for the printer. Select "adjust format" and "print borderless" before clicking on "ok". This will lead you back to the print settings. Choose output size 97.5%, which means that the A4 page will be printed borderless. The individual size of the output page may differ from device to device. It is recommended that you experiment with the settings.
Windows
When a printer supports borderless printing, the function may still need activation in the printer driver settings. Looking at the settings of the printer driver also gives you information about the right printer setup for borderless printing, for example which paper type and format is required. With some printers borderless printing may only be possiple for a standard paper format like A4. Others printers can print borderless on any paper size. When your printer only supports borderless printing on photo paper you shouldn't try to use any other kind of paper, because the printer will use too much ink which will saturate normal paper and make the colors appear very dark. Using a Windows operating system, you can open "printer properties" in the control panel and click on "paper/quality". Afterwards the "automatic borderless adjustment" property is selected. This may vary slightly depending on the version of Windows. More detailed information can be found in the respective manuals of the program versions.
OS X
Apple Mac users can find borderless printing under printer properties. By clicking on "filing and printing" and selecting "show details" a dropdown menu will appear. In this menu you can choose "media and layout" . Now select "paper handling" and the desired destination in the dropdown menu next to the paper size. In a new menu, the desired format is selected by moving the mouse without clicking. Now select "A4 borderless" and click on "print".
Linux
When using Linux, you have to set the printer driver to borderless just like with Windows. The Turboprint driver may change the page size automatically when choosing borderless printing. It is recommended to select the right document settings in the program. This is the only way to ensure that the printout is actually borderless. The document wont be automatically enlarged, as it is the case in Windows.
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