Cannot print Japanese Top to Bottom text

[Bordonbert]

Hi guys.

I have a page of Japanese text in a Japanese calligraphy font which I would like to print out in the correct Right to Left and Top to Bottom format. I can set it up and display it correctly like this in Writer in Portrait format just as I want. The characters are correctly rotated onscreen for a Portrait Vertical Right to Left layout. I can Print Preview it correctly in the same form. However, when I then print, it prints the correct characters but as though laid out to be read in Landscape Left to Right. Effectively it is laid out on the Portrait page correctly, Vertical Right to Left, but the characters are not rotated for a Portrait Vertical page layout.

The system is Win10 (.0.19043) and printer is a network Brother HL-2030 domestic b&w laser model with up to date drivers on a DLink-DPR-1020 Printserver. All other printing from other machines or using different software or even Writer without the vertical alignment is perfect.

Is this a known issue or can anyone suggest what might be wrong?

Oh, and what the heck is “Category” for when it just seems to offer a list of other posts? Where should this query have been “Categorised”?

EDIT:

I hope I get this correct this time. More information was asked for so here it is. There seems to be precious little info for a new member here on how the forum prefers you to go about answering requests for info like this one. The only thing I could see to post a follow up was the Suggest a Solution button, editing new info into the original post is a very unusual procedure and not welcomed on other forums. Anyway, I’ll attempt to correct my lack of vision.

The info available from the Help/About dialogue says:

Version: 7.2.1.2 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 87b77fad49947c1441b67c559c339af8f3517e22
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19043; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-GB (en_GB); UI: en-GB
Calc: CL

Japanese_Test_File.odt (15.0 KB)

Here is a simple single page layout which exhibits the problem on my PC. This displays correctly, previews correctly but prints in Portrait with rotated characters. I’m not sure how we would deal with the Japanese font as it is a third party calligraphy font named HakusyuGyosyo_kk. It is a free font so there are no licencing issues but I’m not allowed to upload that as a true type font file.

[ajlittoz]

And what is your LO version?
For best advice, attach a sample file.

EDIT 2022-01-07:
Your sample file displays correctly (without the custom font) and prints correctly (to file).

EDIT 2:

editing new info into the original post is a very unusual procedure and not welcomed on other forums.

This is so because this site is not a “forum” but a Question&Answer one where a “topic” would have a single question and several answers. The question should contain all information needed to understand it. This avoids the need to follow a (lengthy) thread made of additional requests and subsequent details. This approach promotes synthesis but, as you say, this is not common among usual forums where too frequently the thread approach ends up in TL;DR = too long, don’t read.

[anon87010807]

That might be a printer driver problem.

[Bordonbert]

I tried your advice about printing to file Ajlittoz but I have nothing to open a .PRN file with to view it. I even tried installing various “Free Software” apps which say they could do so. They all were either so impregnated with “before we let you have the free version just try our premium package” preventative steps, or were only available on M$ Store which simply has never been able to download anything onto my PC under any circumstances, that I had to give up. However, writing to PDF and viewing in Reader shows the same problem at this end. However, if you are able to print successfully from the .PRN file then it must be something to do with my printer setup. I wonder if that points towards your driver suggestion Floris_v?

[ajlittoz]

I also print correctly to my PostScript printer. I didn’t try printing via PDF because my printer doesn’t understand PDF (it is quite old) and this goes through pdf2ps filter.

[sokol92]

Print file correctly to Xerox Phaser 6360, Win 10.

[Bordonbert]

Yep! It is certainly looking like there is some problem with my printer setup. It’s on my home network on a D-Link 1020 Print Server and it responds perfectly to normal printing from a number of machines but this rotated text has it beaten on my PC.

I have just tested the same .ODT file in LibreOffice Writer on my wife’s PC, an older slower machine than mine but still running Win 10, and guess what? It printed perfectly, no problem with the rotated text at all.

So I have a workaround but it will be a time consuming irritation to swap files across to print them if I need the rotation! And of course it points to there being no LibOff Writer problem, not even a network, Print Server or destination printer one. The issue is firmly on my own PC.

Oh well, back to troubleshooting that I guess. It’s made difficult by Windows Update’s refusal to talk to my machine at all, apparently a fairly common problem on the internet, and their lack of any meaningful support on the issue, (“There were some problems installing updates, but we’ll try again later.” and “this may help” error code 0x80245006. It doesn’t! And also Brother Driver Downloads telling me that the driver is built in with Windows now but, of course, Windows cannot check or update for me or do a replacement as it won’t communicate with head office.

Anyway, thanks for the assistance guys, it was a really helpful starting point to know that you didn’t see this issue.