Understanding the mystery of printing?

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On 01/30/2009 07:58 AM, Tom Horsley wrote:
> I just got a new HP Photosmart C5580 which can (among other things)
> print on inkjet printable DVDs and CDs. My current goal (probably
> hopeless :-) is to tweak the .ppd file for the copy of the printer
> I made which defaults to the DVD tray and DVD paper size so that
> any application I care to print from will print in the middle
> of the DVD (a quest that will probably take years and cost
> thousands of lives :-).
>
> My first big mystery came with sample printouts I made of a
> hashmark pattern I could use to measure how far off from the
> center I am: Both inkscape and gimp print the pattern with
> the exact same offsets from the center of the CD, but open
> office prints with a completely different offset.
>
> As near as I can tell, I've told every app the page size is
> the same and there are no margins. They all print the marks
> scaled the same with the same distance between marks, so
> does anyone have any clue why open office thinks the center
> of the media is in a different place? Is there some obscure
> printer setup option I missed somewhere in OO?
>
> Even if I can figure how to tweak the .ppd file, it won't
> do much good if different applications use it a different way :-).

Have you tried glabels instead of OO? It's a special-purpose app for 
labels which might suit your needs better.

poc