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Illustrator print preview is not displaying the preview properly. Any clue as to why?

Community Beginner ,
Jan 12, 2015 Jan 12, 2015

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When I go to print a file, the print preview is not displaying the file properly. It is showing it smaller than it is actually printing out in relation to the size of the window. I left work one day and it was functioning properly. The next day it started printing weird.  How it is functioning now, I cannot leave the file as "do not scale" as I can't properly gauge who the printer will output. I've reinstalled the printer drivers as well as uninstalling and reinstalling Illustrator. Any ideas?

Casey

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

New Here , Mar 14, 2023 Mar 14, 2023

I know this is another step, but it seems to work for me. Once you get to the print prview window after you have all your settings in place, click on setup again and then print again. You should see your preview window change to the actual size you are printing.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 12, 2015 Jan 12, 2015

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What platform and version are you on?

Try resetting your Illustrator preferences.

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 12, 2015 Jan 12, 2015

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I'm on a Macbook Pro running 10.9.5. Using Adobe CC 2014. We reset the preferences when we reinstalled it, thinking that would take care of it.  No dice unfortunately.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 13, 2015 Jan 13, 2015

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Can we see a screenshot of your print screen, and let us know if the values underneath your preview are accurate (e.g.: Document : 11" x 17").

Screen Shot 2015-01-13 at 10.28.32 AM.png

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 15, 2015 Jan 15, 2015

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I keep getting an error when I try and upload the photo. I will keep trying as that, I'm sure, would be immensely helpful lol

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 15, 2015 Jan 15, 2015

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PrintPreview.jpg

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Community Expert ,
Jan 15, 2015 Jan 15, 2015

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You need to define your Media size to your actual paper size (e.g. USA: letter or tabloid, UK: A3, etc). Using Defined by driver may have worked in the past, consider yourself lucky.

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 05, 2015 Feb 05, 2015

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I am having the same problem as shown here.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 05, 2015 Feb 05, 2015

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What version of OS and Illustrator version are you on ted?

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 05, 2015 Feb 05, 2015

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Illustrator: CC 2014 18.1.1

Computer: MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2012 OS X version 10.10.1

The problem does not happen in CC, back one version. It's only in CC 2014

Thanks, Ted

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Explorer ,
Feb 28, 2015 Feb 28, 2015

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I have the same preview problem (OS X 10.9.5 & CC 2014 latest) but printing the page works as expected.

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 15, 2015 Jan 15, 2015

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lol I guess I have been lucky as I haven't always selected the media. But, I do most of the time. I just went and adjusted that to tabloid, which we usually print on for these types of files. The % for "fit to page" seems correct, but again, the preview is way smaller than it should be.

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 10.14.47 AM.png

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Community Expert ,
Jan 15, 2015 Jan 15, 2015

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From what I am seeing this would print on tabloid paper, and your graphic takes up about half the width and height, so you could roughly fit 4 of these on tabloid paper after this prints.

What size is your art board? Select your artboard tool (about 3rd form bottom of tools)and look up here.

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 11.34.58 AM.png

Look to the right you and tell us what size you see here

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 11.35.46 AM.png

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 15, 2015 Jan 15, 2015

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The artboard is 47 in x 33 in, so quite a bit larger than 11x17. The art should be filling the preview screen. And when I set it to "Do Not Scale" it fills the screen up, but is displaying as

the fit to page should, not at 100% scale of the document.

Screen Shot 2015-01-15 at 10.41.04 AM.png

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 29, 2015 Jan 29, 2015

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Have you come across anything? I have yet to solve this problem.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 29, 2015 Jan 29, 2015

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Hard to tell if anything is wrong without comparing to your artboard size with rulers on.

This is what Illustrator sees as your art board size, and that is set to 46.81 x 33.11".

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 2.26.38 PM.png

Now what does look strange is all this extra grey area, usually your page fits most of that window.

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 2.30.12 PM.png

We are both using a similar named .ppd. I would go to Xerox Support and Drivers and download the latest .ppd for your printer and install

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 02, 2015 Mar 02, 2015

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I am having the same problem with my Illustrator.  I am running Illustrator CC 2014.1.1 on a MacBook Pro Retina OSX 10.10.2.  Orientation doesn't work in the dialogue box either and when I manually adjust the scaling and position, it still prints incorrectly (way oversized).

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New Here ,
Mar 11, 2015 Mar 11, 2015

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The same problem here.

But on PC, Win7/64 SP1,AI CC 2014.1.1.

The print-preview is oversized, no matter which printer, which size, orientation
etc. is selected) - The print output is alright.

I've tried to delete and reinstall AI, but this won't help.

On my second system (also PC, Win7/64 SP1, AI CC 2014.1.1) everything works fine.

So my first thought was the issue was caused by the screen-size/resolution (2 Monitors,
1: 3440x1440 2: 1600x1200) but using only the small monitor won't help.

My second thought was that there's an issue with the graphics-card or the driver,
it's a GeForce GTX 750 Ti, newest driver. The graphic-card and the monitor-
constellation is the only difference between my two Systems.

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New Here ,
Mar 18, 2015 Mar 18, 2015

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I'm having the same problem, as well. AI CC 2014 (2014.1.1) on a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15 inch, Late 2013) running OS X 10.10.2. 

Most of the preview area is gray. The small white box in the preview area is what, in previous versions of AI, used to take up all of the space that is now gray. And only the top quarter of that white box is the actual printable area. The image below is an 8.5" x 11" document that prints properly at 100%:

Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 11.49.03 AM.png

This next image is the print dialog for a similar document set up as 11" x 17":

Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 11.55.50 AM.png

Notice that the proportions of the white box changed to match the 11" x 17" paper/artboard, while keeping the top quarter as the printable area.

If anybody can shed some light on how to fix this, I would greatly appreciate it. I may have to revert back to a previous version of Illustrator until this is fixed.

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New Here ,
Mar 18, 2015 Mar 18, 2015

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Having the same issue here - MacBook Pro Retina, OS 10.9.5 fully updated, AI CC 2014.

Same with any printer - the print preview is only like 1/4 the full size, and cuts off prints.

Tried uninstalling/reinstalling, resetting prefs, resetting the printing system, running utilities like cocktail etc.. no change.

Have another almost identical system and it works fine.

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 26, 2015 Mar 26, 2015

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All of you seem to have a configuration in common.  A MacBook Pro and an external monitor.  This also applies to me except I have about 15 MacBook Pros and 15 monitors at my disposal all configured the same way with the same OS and application versions.  However, some computers were having the problem while other weren't.  Here is what I found out:

The problem seems to occur with the MacBook monitor being active as well as the external monitor being active on extended desktops.  When your computer is in this configuration and you select Print, the Print Preview shows wrong when the Print dialog window is on the EXTERNAL MONITOR.  However, if you drag the Print dialog over to your MacBook monitor, the Print Preview will redraw CORRECTLY!

The same applies if you mirror your MacBook and the 27-inch monitor.  While mirrored, the Print Preview will display correctly.  (Some of my computers were mirrored, some weren't.  This is what tripped me up for so long.)

ANYWAY, the temporary solution is to move the Print dialog box with the Print Preview onto the MacBook screen.  This seems to be a bug in Illustrator.

I do want to say Thank You to pipingpete as he initially noticed this situation over in the thread:

Illustrator CC 18.1.1 print preview is not displaying preview properly. Any work around?!

Rob

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Community Expert ,
Mar 27, 2015 Mar 27, 2015

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Thanks Rob for sharing, you are definitely onto something. I believe only the windows config mentioned they had an external monitor, unless I am missing that or they did not mention. There does seem to be a pattern with Retina displays and higher resolutions.

If you do not have an external monitor and are still having this problem try toggling your resolutions and settings in your display preferences.

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New Here ,
Apr 01, 2015 Apr 01, 2015

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I'm having the same issue as well.


macbook pro retina 15" with an external display. Going to see if I can go back to CC

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Community Expert ,
Mar 27, 2015 Mar 27, 2015

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Thanks for the solution. Looks promising. But I just had the missing print preview in a presentation where the projector was synched with my Macbook's screen.

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New Here ,
Mar 27, 2015 Mar 27, 2015

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Thanks, Rob! While it's not the permanent fix I was hoping for, your workaround worked for me. You, sir, are the wind beneath my wings.

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