Printing ruler problems

I have designed and imported different centimeter rulers. They look fine on Inkscape and in the GFUI but when I print them some of the centimeter marks are offset by what looks to be 0.5 mm. I printed GF ruler and it looks fine. Any ideas what is going on?

The path of the laser goes down the center of your lines in your art program - so if your line weight is thick, and your measurement in your art program is going edge to edge rather than center to center…

It’s a guess, but worth checking.

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It looks like the tick mark after each full unit starting with zero is offset a bit. I think it is the file. Notice the small space after the ninth marks also…

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Exactly. It’s the file. Those 4 marks are not centered.

You’re likely set to “Visual bounding box”, not using Geometric.

I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve hit this snag!

After reviewing the print results you provided, the trouble may be with the file you are utilizing. Would it be possible to have the file posted to this thread for us to review?

5 cm

I’m pretty sure it’s the file too. When learning Inkscape and trying new settings I forget what I’ve changed but Inkscape doesn’t and opens new documents with settings I’ve used and forgotten. Is there a way to “reset” Inkscape to default settings so I can start over? How do you turn on Geometric bounding?

Well now I’m not so sure it’s the file. I generated a ruler using this:
Vector Ruler SVG Generator and did not import the file into Inkscape first but just downloaded it from the website and uploaded into GFUI.
The file printed it with the same results I got using Inkscape. The centimeter lines are offset.

exportedRuler-3

Yeah, it’s the way the file is being made. For some reason there is text/font definition applied to the line style, the machine (technically, the cloud) isn’t handling that. Text isn’t meant to be a precision element.

Make your own file, or manually remove all that garbage from the source.

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thanks for the advice. I generated a ruler measured in inches and it worked fine. I guess I’ll just buy a metric ruler.

Or, as I said, make your own. Takes 2 minutes in Inkscape.
mm-rulw.svg.zip (1.1 KB)

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or you could try…

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I learned a lot about alignment and distribution making different rulers in Inkscape. I tried lots of generators. I think that this post is what might have led me to install and use OpenSCAD. Makes great rulers.

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Thank you so much for providing the file, and working through a couple of other designs to see if the same behavior occurred. I’m glad @eflyguy provided some great steps, and an example file that should work for the project you are hoping to complete.

I’m going to move this discussion over to Everything Else so that the discussion can continue there. If you run into any more trouble, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us directly at support@glowforge.com. We’re here to help!

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