HP Smart App - Margins fine on phone, not on PC

[Sparkuk]

Bit of a head scratcher this one. Set up my 4120e printer, everything running fine, but the HP smart windows app is behaving strangely when it comes to the printer's minimum margins. This issue happens regardless of paper size / type / any other settings.

As the screenshots show (6x4 photo paper in this example, full page, shrink to fit), from the mobile app it prints perfectly, the test image gets placed inside all minimum margins, including the back end 'tab' (12.7mm I believe) which this printer relies on.

However, go over to the Windows 10 smart app, same image / same settings, and it seems to be ignoring the tab margin - and if I print this, the area of the image where the tab is gets cut off. And if I change from 'shrink to fit' to 'fill page', it stretches the image right to the very edges of the paper, ignoring all 4 margins (again, if I do the same on mobile app, it still correctly constricts the image to all 4 margins).

Tried everything - installed the HP full feature windows software package, uninstalled / reinstalled HP smart, changed various settings in it, nothing works, not from within the smart app anyway (or any program that calls up the smart app to print).

One place I do get given the correct margins, is right-clicking an image in windows file explorer and selecting print. This brings up the standard windows printing UI, the margins/tab display correctly, and the image prints fine within them. I guess I can just continue to do this, but just bugs me why smart won't play ball.

So just to recap:

• HP smart on mobile (with e-print plugin obviously) - works fine.
• Standard windows print ui - works fine.
• HP smart on windows - ignores minimum margins.

Mobile: Samsung S10 with HP smart (and e-print plugin)

PC: Intel i5 laptop running windows 10 (21H2)

[Dragon-Fur]

@Sparkuk 

Welcome to the HP Community Forum.

Updates

Remove content judged not useful in the context of this printer model.

For those reading:

Used in the example provided by @Sparkuk --

HP Smart Printing is a newer format GUI that is both similar and different from using the main print queue (named for the printer).

Where available, HP Smart Printing is installed along with HP Smart (Windows).

HP Smart Printing supports using creating Custom Shortcuts / Presets.

Options are (still) printer model dependent.

General Example - Printing Preferences > HP Smart Printing

HP_Smart_Print_Printing_Preferences_2

General Example - HP Smart - Windows - Smart Printing - Simple Photo Print 4x6

HP_Smart_Win_Smart_Printing_Photo_4x6_Border_2

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HP printers - Printed photos are cropped incorrectly (Android)

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HP DeskJet 4120e All-in-One Printer 

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[Sparkuk]

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@Dragon-Fur wrote:

The HP Smart application (Print Queue = Smart Printing) centers the image for you and extends (creates) all margins to the minimum for all sides (12.7 mm - 1/2 inch).  That means, the printer cannot Crop / Center the photo using the smaller margins so it uses the larger margin for all sides.

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Not as far as I can see. The mobile HP smart app creates a 12.7mm 'tab' (bottom margin, required for printer to feed out paper at the end of printing), and about 3mm (minimum) on all other sides, and when you select 'shrink to fit' it places the image inside this frame (maintaining aspect ratio which may increase the other margins as necessary). Duplicating this exercise on the PC does not create the 12.7mm bottom margin tab; instead placing that edge of the image in the area which will not get printed, as per screenshot.

The point I'm trying to get across, is that by all rights the HP smart app on the PC, with the same image, same placement, and all the exact same settings, should produce the exact same result as the HP smart app on mobile, but it doesn't.

[Dragon-Fur]

@Sparkuk 

No problem - there was a certain amount of “assumption” — and wrong, apparently.

Curious, do you have the tabbed 4x6 inch paper size in the list of paper sizes?

Might be listed as “Tabbed 4x6” or 4x6.5 — some variation.

I do not know whether “by rights” the source code is the same for both Mobile and PC versions of the app.  I don’t have access to any of the internals, else I would certainly check.  Smiling.

I shall withdraw, having naught to offer, after all.

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[Sparkuk]

There doesn't appear to be an entry for tabbed paper, no.

Just for completeness here's a screenshot of the same image/settings in the standard windows system dialogue box, with correct margins and bottom tab (albeit on the other side, but that doesn't matter).