This post is for me mostly, so I can remember to use this method when I am trying to print and cut from Silhouette Studio using my Epson 3880.
I’ve long struggled with printing from Silhouette Studio because the margins used by this program do not appear to match those used by my windows printing preferences for my Epson 3880 printer. It looks like Silhouette Studio centers the image using margins of .116 (I believe inches) all the way around. I’ve seen various comments over the years on the supposed margin numbers used by Epson, but I can tell that by default it seems as though the left and bottom margins are not the same. I feel like this is the reason I see the drift when trying to print and cut from Silhouette Studio. The further right and down the print is, the more off the cut is from the print. This happens when I just try to print a page and cut with or without using the true Print and Cut (PnC)- with the optical eye and registration marks. Today however, I wanted to try to skip the true PnC and figure out a way to print some pretty basic shapes with a QR code in the middle.
I initially tried to calibrate my system using the calibration tool in Silhouette Studio that you can use after right mouse button clicking on the machine listed at the bottom left of the Send page.
Currently I have no adjustments to the calibration because when I did the test print and then test cut it seemed dead on accurate.
The distance markers seemed off though. So I originally had them set to 199.3 and 99.5 for A-B and 1-2 respectively, however I believe these are only for true Print and Cut so I turned them off to move forward with my margin idea.
My logic was that the print coming from Silhouette Studio was larger than the print that would be generated for the 8.5×11 printer page coming from my windows print preferences. I converted measurements to mm/cm because one post I read mentioned that the margins on the Epson 3880 were 0.28 cm top and left, 0.32 cm bottom and right. I found in the windows printing preferences a setting that converted the page size to the printed page size, and since there was no way to set margins that I could find, I decided to give that option a go.
I did the original math wrong, but it came pretty close to working despite that, and with a bunch of trial and errors, I ended up the starting page size as 21.74 cm wide and 28. 14 cm high converting to 8.5 x 11 inches (21.59 x 27.94 cm)
This brought the test print and cuts I was using to test with pretty close- especially for not having to deal with registration marks. Any little bit I was off, I just shift the cuts over by a hair.
I did try a normal Print and Cut with the registration marks and they seemed to work with this set up as well.
I ran out of time with my testing today, but I’m sure I will revisit this in the future A) to understand how the math should work 😉 and B) to see if I can get it dead on accurate! Stay Tuned!
