3880 Custom Length Borderless Prints

[costadinos]

After using the 3880 for a few days, I realised that, to my disappointment, while the printer is capable of performing borderless prints on select paper sizes, it looks to not be able to print borderless for a custom length of paper.

To my understanding, the limitation to borderless printing is the placement of the ink absorbing pads under the paper path, which should constrain the paper width only, not its length.
The same is true for the R2000, there are certain widths that support borderless prints, but the length can be selected by the user.

Is this really an omission by Epson or is there another reason why this is so? And of course, is there a workaround to this without using RIP software (expensive)? Could it be a driver version issue? (for example, the newer version of my R2000 printer supports even more borderless widths than the older version).

I tried creating a slightly larger page size than the paper to minimize the border (like Epson suggests doing with their 7900), but it didn't work, the printer probably has a sensor and just won't print past the 1/6 inch or so mark from the border.

 

[The Hat]

Firstly forget about trying to fool your printer, it just won’t work you can only print borderless for a few stated sizes and for one media type paper so custom sizes are out.

You can however print on whichever paper you want to use by setting your printers media to glossy photo paper and that’s about the limit of control you have over the print driver while it’s set to print borderless.

I don’t use an Epson printer myself but it seems to be exactly the same as it is with a Canon printer, you are limited to the dozen or so selected sizes in page setup, and as for the reason behind it, well I haven’t got a clue because the official reasons given are just nonsense..

 

[costadinos]

Firstly forget about trying to fool your printer, it just won’t work you can only print borderless for a few stated sizes and for one media type paper so custom sizes are out.

You can however print on whichever paper you want to use by setting your printers media to glossy photo paper and that’s about the limit of control you have over the print driver while it’s set to print borderless.

I don’t use an Epson printer myself but it seems to be exactly the same as it is with a Canon printer, you are limited to the dozen or so selected sizes in page setup, and as for the reason behind it, well I haven’t got a clue because the official reasons given are just nonsense..

The thing is you can do custom length borderless with less sophisticated models. I have an R2000 which allows that, so it's really strange the bigger and supposedly more pro-oriented 3880 can't.
What's more, the top of the line models can be fooled by printing on page sizes smaller than the page size specified in the driver (and, believe it or not, that's exactly the procedure for printing borderless described in the official manual ).

 

[The Hat]

If you can manage to fool your printer into printing borderless on custom sizes, Please don’t be shy about sharing it with all of us, I for one would definitely appreciate it..

 

[costadinos]

If you can manage to fool your printer into printing borderless on custom sizes, Please don’t be shy about sharing it with all of us, I for one would definitely appreciate it..

I don't know about the Canons, I only have Epson printers right now, but I can do that with the 24" 7900. The manual suggests defining a larger paper size in the driver than you actually load in the printer.
It's on page 124 in the manual below:

http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/pro79_/pro79_ug.pdf

 

[The Hat]

Sadly that unfortunately only works for rolled paper and not for cut custom sizes, thanks anyway..

 

[costadinos]

Sadly that unfortunately only works for rolled paper and not for cut custom sizes, thanks anyway..

This is where fooling your printer into doing something it's not supposed to comes into play

You can feed the printer sheet paper but select roll paper in the driver and deselect the cutting option. You only have to grab and stop the rollers on the top of the printer while the printer thinks it's winding the roll back. Once it feels resistance it will stop and you can continue printing as if you were printing on roll paper.