Fix any printer's default A4 paper margins

Sep 17, '03 09:55:00AM

Contributed by: mkennard20

A lot of my clients found printing in Word v.X cuts off their documents at the bottom of the page, while OS 9 had no cut off problems. Looks like Apple sets the bottom margin to be 1.45cm for the "Any Printer" setting, which bypasses anything set by applications like Word.

To fix this, you need to use your favourite text editor to modify the system file /System -> Library -> Frameworks -> ApplicationServices.framework -> Versions -> A -> Frameworks -> PrintCore.framework -> Versions -> A -> Resources -> PaperInfo.xml.

  1. Open Terminal
  2. Type:
    cd /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/
    cd Versions/A/Frameworks/PrintCore.framework/Versions/A/Resources/
  3. Type sudo cp PaperInfo.xml PaperInfo.xml_backup, then enter your password.
  4. Type sudo pico PaperInfo.xml.
  5. Hit Control-W to search, and enter A4 as the search string, then hit return.
  6. Press the down arrow until you see this line, which is the setting for the bottom margin:
    7.830000000000000e+02
  7. Change 7.83 to 8.06.
  8. Hit Control-O to save, and hit return to accept the filename and save.
  9. Type Control-X to exit.
  10. Type exit to close the Terminal.
Now let's see if it works...
  1. Open any application you can print from.
  2. Select Page Setup from the File Menu.
  3. Click on the pop-up menu Settings and select Summary.
You should see the bottom margin is the same all round.

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