[LkwdBrian]

I just started playing with OmniPlan this week, although I'm familiar with other PM apps (particularly MS Project).

I'm trying to print out a GANTT chart, with the outline, using a date range which amounts to about two months to limit what I'm seeing, and scale it so that I can get it on to a couple of pages to make it easily distributable to the project team and management.

I'm having real problems doing that. I fill in the appropriate fields on the OmniPlan section of the print dialog box but can never seem to get it to scale right.. either the project plan takes up 4 pages or it takes up about 1/4 of one page... but I can't seem to get it "just right" (I feel like Goldilocks)

Also, if I use the "Preview" button to see what it looks like to see if I've got it right, the print dialog is closed when I return to OmniPlan, so that I have to re-enter all my settings and try it again.

In additon, I've noticed that when the GANTT chart goes to the second page (height-wise) that often a task name and the task bar are broken between the two pages... ideally it would be nice if it would do a page break before that task so the text and bar are not split across two pages.

Any suggestions on how to get a good printout?

--Brian

[christ]

I have a couple of issues with printing, one a bug, the other a missing feature:

Bug
1) I set the project to print A3 Landscape.
2) I set the project to print from date A to date B
(3) I also set to print project 1 page wide, but the bug happens regardless of this)

The printout appears correctly sized, but is truncated as if it were being printed on A4 portrait - leaving the right side of the paper blank.

Feature
I work with projects that have (relatively) few tasks, but the project is of (relatively) long duration, so my ideal printout is one page high, but several pages wide. It is unwieldy to manoeuvre and then read across these several pages when the outline is written on the leftmost page only. Even if I stick them together, read across is still difficult.

Would it be possible to have an option to repeat the outline column(s) on all pages? This would make the project even wider, but would make the printout considerably more useable.

I have reported the bug (and requested the feature) via feedback, but I wonder if someone else has found a workaround, or if I am doing something wrong.

LkwdBrian: I've also found the preview printing rather quirky. The preview PDFs are all well and good, but if they aren't quite what you want there's no easy way to tweak the settings without starting again. I don't see the 1/4 page problem, but a slightly different strangeness:

If I print my current task list to A3 at 100%, it runs over 4 pages. The lists of tasks, duration and gantt bars all print fine, it's just too big.
But, if I scale to 80% or so, so that everything fits on one page, the gantt area hides the task list - all i can see is a list of 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc.

(I mentioned another aspect of printing - big margins - in a feedback email, and Aaron said that improved margin control and horizontal/vertical names, when printing resource lists, were already popular feature requests. Both would help fit lists neatly onto 1 page I reckon)

Cheers
BNFB

[christ]

Beta 6 appears to have gone backwards in this area - now it forgets to save the page set up for a project - I set the page to A3 landscape for a project, and save it, but next time I open that project it has reverted to A4 portrait.

Bah.

I can now, with some work, fool the project into printing a restricted date range (changing the start date only) full width on A3, but in the process I appear to have lost the dates from the top row(on screen as well as on paper), but only in 'month' view - the dates show up in week view or in quarter view, but disappear when I go to month view (either explicitly or by dragging the width of the columns on the GANTT)

Weeks:



(... but note glitch in 6/04/May)

Months:



Quarters:



Now that I look at it, if I could get the date row to print, it would be nice if that printed on all pages, not just the top row of pages.

[jasper502]

Even MS Project seems to be beta software when it comes to printing.

If I want a landscape print out on 3 pages (1 wide x 3 tall) why can't the app just scale to fill the page margins?

On this printing thread:

- page margins?
- headers?
- footers?

[jasper502]

I have however discovered the export function which when you select PDF you get a single page gantt chart. You need to play with the time scale and you loose the task list table but I find it's easier than using the print command.

[christ]

Printing is still not ready for prime time in Beta 7. I cannot get it to behave reasonably, no matter what I do. The assumption appears to be that I am willing to spread the pages out on a huge table and scotch tape them together, and that is not how I need to do it.

Oh well, I guess I'll be waiting just that little bit longer to throw away my PC with MSProject on it. A shame, as apart from that, I quite like this little programme.