I use Dress Shop v6.16. My printer is an Epson Stylus Photo EX. I have previously used Wild Ginger Boutique v3. With that program and printer, I was able to print long sheets that were 8.5 x 44 in. Using the current Dress Shop v6.16 I ccan print long sheets on an old dot matrix printer, but it takes hours to print the whole pants pattern.

I followed the instructions on page 22 of the Dress Shop manual:
* I set File/Settings to:
Print All - Print by columns...
Confugured the printer to the long page siz - or alternatively to "fanfold.."
* Under the print command, I again configured the printer to use the long page size as instructed in the printer's manual
* I set margins to 0
* I selected "Print all Pages".

What I got was a page 8.5 x 14"


As an alternative, I tried printing toMS Office - MS Document Image Writer. I set it up in the same way but still the maximum page length was 8.5 14"

Any ideas to help me?

Thanks

Try setting your paper size to 8.5 x 44" (about 4 pages long as one sheet). Seem to remember this trick working for some people when they were having problems a year or two ago.

quote:

Originally posted by Dan:
My printer is an Epson Stylus Photo EX. ...
I followed the instructions on page 22 ...
What I got was a page 8.5 x 14"

Don -

I don't use the print by columns so I can't help you there. But I do print my patterns on 11 x 17 paper on my HP Deskjet printer all the time. So there isn't an 8.5 x 14 limitation in DS. It has to be some little trick in the program and printer setup.

Good luck. Vicki

Dan,
I have used Epson printers from the start with Dress Shop and My Pattern Designer. Currently I have an Epson Stylus C86. I have my DS and MPD print set to print columns. I have a printer installed named "Dress Shop Printer" so I can keep the settings; I just make that printer the default when I go in to print a pattern. I use a custom paper size of 8 1/2 x 44. I use fanfold computer paper where I remove the hole strips. Depending on the length of the pattern, I will use either 2 sheets (22 inches), 3 sheets (33 inches) this is the most frequently used, or 4 sheets (44 inches). My particular printer is a bit picky about feeding, so I handfeed the paper, but it all prints, and in MPD prints fast.
Hope this helps.
Lettie

Lettie you may not have helped Dan, but you helped me - I never thought of using longer or fanfold paper on my epson 86 and will give it a try now. So thanks for posting.

Lettie:
Thanks. Can I go over the steps with you? This is how I have been doing it.

1. Set up the Epson printer to custom page size of 8.5 x 44 (or 33) inches
2. Set file/settings to print columns, not rows
3. Set file/page setup to top and bottom margins of 0 inches
4. Select “Print all pages”
5. Hand feed the fanfold paper

The only thing that I can see that is different is that you have set the Epson with the long paper settings as a separate printer and that you designate it as the default when you print Dress Shop.

Is there anything that you are doing that is different?
When you have the DS "Print "screen showing, do you have 9 or 12 little boxes on the left side (as I do) or are there only 3 long boxes showing?
Was there a reason that you needed to designate a special Dress Shop printer?
Was it necessary to have it the default printer for it to work?


Thanks to all of the rest of you who tried to help me.

Dan

I answered my own question.

It is NECESSARY to set up the printer and designate it as the default for it to print the long sheets.