Thinking about new printer for low humidity environment - No glass framing

[GrahamBy]

Or A2 in other parts of the world, which explains the 594mm maximum length.

However, I have trouble believing they have really arrived at this decision through a carefully thought out process : sounds more like the stubborn pride of a  manager somewhere in the Canon hierarchy.

Oh, I'm sure that never happens, right? 

[Mark D Segal]

There are some papers available in 17 x 25 sheets.

I found one.

I would also surmise that if there were significant demand for this Canon could design a firmware update allowing the printer to run for another several inches, but I don't know that.

[Mark D Segal]

Or A2 in other parts of the world, which explains the 594mm maximum length.

However, I have trouble believing they have really arrived at this decision through a carefully thought out process : sounds more like the stubborn pride of a  manager somewhere in the Canon hierarchy.

Oh, I'm sure that never happens, right? 

In this context I would surmise highly unlikely verging on unthinkable.

[One Frame at a Time]

I found one.

I would also surmise that if there were significant demand for this Canon could design a firmware update allowing the printer to run for another several inches, but I don't know that.

Red River makes a few and moab does too, or used to.  There are some others.  For my images, many times I'd find if I tried to print an image with a height dimension of 16 inches I'd want the length to exceed 22 inches.  Of course you could shrink the whole print but it seems dumb (that word again) to shrink the entire print size when all you need is another couple inches of width.  Or crop and change the perspective for the worse.  Sometimes of course the 17x22 is fine but having some flexibility let's you print using the printers max width more often.

[Mark D Segal]

The width is the 17" dimension. That is fixed - it's the kind of printer it is. The length is the dimension of concern here. Whether or not it is long enough relative to the width depends on  the aspect ratio of the photo without cropping, or what length would correspond with the 17 inch dimension if the image were cropped in a manner that changes the aspect ratio and whether or not one prints with a border or borderless, because a fixed-width border all around also changes the aspect ratio, hence the maximum length that would correspond with the maximum width. Depending on these factors, if one wanted to take advantage of the maximum width, there are situations in which it would be good to have more than 22 inch length, but others in which it suffices. As a general principle here I would agree that more is better. Depending on the demand for it, I'm wondering whether they could achieve that with a firmware upgrade allowing a longer piece of paper to be printed.

[GrahamBy]

For reference, you can print 12x18 on 13x19 with a uniform 1/2" border. For all of the A-series papers, you can do it with a uniform 9% border (38mm on A2, 19mm on A4). If you wanted to use 17x22 in this way, you would be limited to 10x15" printed area and 3.5" borders...

The further the paper is from 1:1.5, the wider your borders need to be to compensate... I'm happy not to have to use US paper sizes, although the wide borders might work for you if you don't want to mat.

[rdonson]

FWIW I have some older 24" rolls and my plan is to cut some of that on my rotary cutter into 16x24 sheets.  I think the Epson P800 allows for you to create unique sheet sizes.  I haven't confirmed that yet though.  Maybe Mark can address that.

[chez]

Who makes 16*24 inch sheet inkjet paper? 17*22 is the most common maximum sheet size available from the main providers.

I buy rolls and cut to whatever size I need. I don't want to alter my image aspect just because the damn printer can't handle paper which would allow full utilization of the 17" format.

Still no answer exactly what the benefit to anyone restricting the paper size to less than 25".

[rdonson]

The definitive answer can only be provided by a Canon rep or someone who has talked to a Canon rep about this.

[GrahamBy]

People have been complaining about the length limitation at least since the start of the Pro-1/10/100 series, and there has been no fix. Commercially I'd have thought that it would be easier to do for an A3+ printer, since it won't steal sales from the Ipf5100. It would seem that roll-feed and long prints are the only remaining advantages of the 5100 over the pro1000... but then there doesn't seem to be much inclination to continue the 5100 either.

[Mark D Segal]

The definitive answer can only be provided by a Canon rep or someone who has talked to a Canon rep about this.

I'm in the "has talked to" category. The current answer is that with the Windows driver the maximum length for a custom paper size is 23.39 inches. This is not specified in the Mac driver version and I have not been able to verify whether this length limitation also applies to the Mac version. Staff at Canon are well aware of the web forum discussions about this printer in general and this issue in particular.