[Leica] Why you shouldn't buy a Canon printer

[Martin Howard <mvhoward@mac.com>]

I've just come off the telephone with Canon technical support.  I had 
been using a paper trimmer to cut my 8.5x11" paper in half (getting 
5.5x8.5" paper) and then using the Custom Paper Size available in Mac 
OS X to specify a custom paper size (at 5.5x8.5" with 0.12" margins all 
around).

Then, using the Photoshop "Print with Preview..." I checked to see that 
everything looked good.  It did.  I printed.

What I got was 2/3 of my image offset about 3" in along the 8.5" 
dimension, and 0.25" along the 5.5" dimension.

So, I saved a "preview" as a PDF and opened in Acrobat and printed from 
there (on my custom paper size).  Same result.

I checked the Apple support site to see that I was setting custom paper 
size correctly.  I was.  I was following the recommended procedure for 
doing this.

So, I tried the Canon technical support web site.  Unavailable.  
However, when I registered my i950, they sent me back an email with a 
technical support telephone number in it.  I called this.

After waiting for 30min in a queue, I got hold of someone who was 
supposedly the Mac expert.  I told him my story.  He sounded confused.  
He asked me if it worked when I printed on 5x7" paper.  I told him it 
did, that the problem was when I was specifying custom paper sizes 
(5.5x8.5"), and I'd isolated the problem to the printer driver that 
seemed to be doing something odd.

His claim, to which he stuck regardless of the amount of logic or 
reasoning that I tried with him, was that since the printer printed on 
4x6", 5x7", and 8.5x10" paper correctly, there was nothing wrong with 
the driver.  Nevermind that the custom paper size is a feature built 
into the operating system and Canon claim that their product is 
compatible with that operating system.  Nevermind that they no-where in 
their documentation does it state that you *cannot* use custom paper 
sizes.  He adamantly maintained, like a broken record, that there was 
absolutely nothing wrong with their printer driver and that, therefore, 
it was not his problem and he was going to do nothing to help me.

I thanked him for his time and told him that I was considering buying 
an Epson printer instead.  "I'm sorry you feel that way," he claimed.  
Yeah.  Well.  Guess why I feel that way?

So... if you imagine that you will ever need to talk to technical 
support personnel when buying an inkjet printer, I would recommend that 
you take into consideration that those at Canon -- at least their "Mac 
expert" -- is about as helpful as a parachute in a diving bell.

M.

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