Time Needed : 10 minutes
Have you ever needed to print a huge fractal poster, but your printer only supports A4, Letter, or A3 paper sizes?
Did you know that you can print big images over numerous pages using a simple program like Microsoft Paint?
If you want to print a huge poster or display version of your favourite jwildfire fractal creation but don’t want to go to a specific printing shop or simply can’t afford it.
Once done, your fractal may then be printed on numerous pages using your home printer. Then all you have to do is tape the picture together, or put the paper sheets together using another means, such as glueing to a board.
This is a guide for Windows based machines, something similar is probably available on the Mac.
Here’s how it works:
Find Paint on your PC
Easy enough, click into the search area on your taskbar and type paint.
Open image
Once Paint is loaded, you’re going to want to click File, then click Open and look for your favourite picture.
Open your picture
Once you find your picture, click on it, then click Open
Then you go into the Print area to get to Page Setup
Click File, then move down to Print, then across to Page setup
Page Setup Box Appears
A settings box for the Page Setup will appear
We’re interested mostly in the Scaling section of that Box
In the scaling section this is where we’re going to have fun. We can change how many pages our picture will be printed over. Currently, it’s set to 1 page by 1 page, i.e. It will print our pic on one page only. Let’s change that!
Making it bigger
What we can do now is say we want our fractal to be printed over 4 pages, 2 across and 2 down. Of course you can change this to whatever you like if you changed it to 4 across and 4 down, then your image will be printed over 16 sheets of paper, so that’s going to be huge. Once you’ve changed the numbers, click Ok
Remove margins?
Just a personal preference, if you print above without changing margins you’ll need to trim the image areas with scissors etc a lot more. You can remove the margins as seen below for a lot less snippage.
Printing your marvel
Then all you need to do is go to the file menu again, and click Print to print your sheets.
Sticking them all together
Keep all your sheets together and count so you know where each is placed. So on a 2 x 2 page print, then the first two will be top left, top right and the next two will be bottom left and bottom right.
You will get a huge smile when you see your fractals printed this big, and for a tiny fraction of the cost of what it would if you wanted a huge version from a shop. Admittedly, it’s not as professional, but done properly it looks marvellous. Have fun!
Tools
- Printer
- Paint Package
Materials
- paper