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Mr. Q printing woes :(


zoo_keeper
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I really like the looks of Mr. Q, but I swear it's given me the hugest headache over the past 2 months.

 

Is anyone else having trouble printing it out?

 

I don't have an i-anything (or kindle or nook or whatever), I like books. So I first started trying to find a place I could send the pdf file to and have them print it out. To save on costs, I removed the worksheets, had it set to 2 pages per sheet, plus double-sided. I also resized the files to 8.5x11. The cheapest place I found was Lulu, but their printer kept having problems. I then sent the file over to my university's printing service, but their printer couldn't read the font. Then, I bought a comb binding machine and resolved to do it myself, but neither my printer nor my office printer will print the student book correctly. Starting on the 5th page or so, the font starts messing up - skipping letters and whole words here and there.

 

I'm using the freebie LS book if that matters. I wanted to take advantage of the sale that just passed, so I started working on this in December in order to take LS on a test run. However, given all of the problems we've been having, I skipped the sale and now wonder if Mr. Q is just not in the stars for us. We're currently using GP Junior Science and add in RS4K and tooooons of library books and videos, but the girls just love the look of Mr. Q.

 

Help me! Has anyone found a workaround to this? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks :)

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I've printed chunks of it, but I don't think I have printed any of the student life science book, now that I think of it.

 

I do wish he would publish a "transcript" of the course, that could be used as a spine, and then mom could decide what else to print of the course, and more easily plan supplements.

 

I've been kind of copying and pasting a bit of a spine for myself.

 

Other than Spalding and SOW, I have never put so much effort into tweaking a curriculum.

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If you are on a windows machine are you using adobe pdf reader? I use linux and occasionally have pdf problems. I have to use Okular pdf reader most of the time to get accurate printing for Mr. Q science.

 

 

Penny, I do have a windows machine and the problem may indeed be the reader (Adobe). I looked at Okular, but I must admit the website intimidated me (it seems to require a level of technical expertise that surpasses my own skill/breadth of knowledge). So I installed the free Nitro pdf reader and now most of the issues have been resolved. There are still some random capital letters missing (weird thing - Adobe could print those fine, just had problems with lowercase letters).

 

If anyone has a better pdf reader suggestion (free?), I'd love to hear it!

 

And thanks, everyone, for your input!

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I really like what i've seen of Mr. Q, but the lack of a hardcopy order choice has kept me from giving it a try. Past experience has taught me I don't do well with downloads that require printing. Does anyone know if printed copies are necessary to make this program work, or would it work as an ebook on a tablet or in an ereader?

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http://www.nirmaltv.com/2012/01/27/free-portable-pdf-readers/

 

One of these may work for you. Okular is for linux.

 

Penny

 

Ugh, my eyes are crossing! I installed each one of those readers, and each one has a problem with some letter or other! I can't believe how horrifically complicated printing out a darn pdf is! Why can't he just use a different font??? Or have a hard copy available to order?

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I wonder if this is a computer specific problem? I own 3 of Mr. Q classic science manuals, and I haven't had any issues with the font. We use chrome for internet and adobe reader for PDF viewer. Have you tried emailing Mr. Q himself? I'm sure he'd love to figure out what's going on.

ETA: Maybe the OS has something to do with it? We use Vista on one computer and XP on another.

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I have problems with pdfs occassionally. Some files just don't want to print properly. Last week I had a file where the font was obviously having trouble going in one piece from the computer to the printer - all the headings had words printed with one letter off ie "love" would be "mpwf". I usually get around it by checking "print as image" on the print page. Not really ideal but it is a good workaround for those problem files.

 

From memory, the Mr Q life science was one where I had to use that workaround because the font was justifying oddly; some words were squished together and others were spread far apart :tongue_smilie:

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Nope, it's not computer-specific. I've had this problem on my main home computer (Windows 7 64-bit) and office computer (Windows XP 32-bit) using a whole bevy of different readers. 2 different laser printers (office and home) had issues, plus Lulu's and my university's print center.

 

I did email Scott (and am super impressed with the depth and quickness of his responses). He helped me resolve the sizing issue and then imparted that he's been working on the fonts. He said that he's redone all of his books except for Life Science (however, the previews online of the subsequent books still look like they use the same font - can anyone impart recent experience, please?), but that's on the horizon in the next few months.

 

I was just hoping that someone else had also encountered this problem and has a nice, handy-dandy solution?

 

Oh, and I just went ahead and printed the bulk of the student text minus worksheets yesterday. I guess I'll just write in the missing letters. Not to keen about that. Maybe I'll look at it as a lesson in our brain's cognitive ability to read incomplete words (since our brains don't actually read every letter anyway)...

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Actually, now that I think about it, could it be a laser printer problem? I've had issues in the past with my work printers printing out various fonts as garbage (some of the Scholastic Dollar Days downloads and random Spanish text), but my inkjet at home had no problems. I just didn't want to use an inkjet for such a large job.

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Actually, now that I think about it, could it be a laser printer problem? I've had issues in the past with my work printers printing out various fonts as garbage (some of the Scholastic Dollar Days downloads and random Spanish text), but my inkjet at home had no problems. I just didn't want to use an inkjet for such a large job.

 

I did use my inkjet. I didn't print the chapter headers at all (what a waste of ink!!) instead printing Chapter "X" on blank papers which inserted in the appropriate places.

 

I printed out the rest of the text in color, double-sided, on my inkjet. Without the chapter headers, the ink use wasn't anywhere near as obscene. I printed out the worksheets separately in b&w and bound them separately.

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I really like what i've seen of Mr. Q, but the lack of a hardcopy order choice has kept me from giving it a try. Past experience has taught me I don't do well with downloads that require printing. Does anyone know if printed copies are necessary to make this program work, or would it work as an ebook on a tablet or in an ereader?

 

I avoided pdf curriculum prior to owning an iPad. Once I got my iPad, I started using Mr Q's materials. I do not print anything. Doodle and I sit together and read the text. We also do the vocabulary matching together without printing the worksheet. Doodle simply tells me which vocabulary word goes with which definition.

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I avoided pdf curriculum prior to owning an iPad. Once I got my iPad, I started using Mr Q's materials. I do not print anything. Doodle and I sit together and read the text. We also do the vocabulary matching together without printing the worksheet. Doodle simply tells me which vocabulary word goes with which definition.

 

Thank you! That's just the sort of info I needed.

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If you are going to read the book off the computer, it helps to make a bit if a scope and sequence for planning. I printed the vocab and sample questions, 2 to a page, inserting a blank page wherever needed to keep chapters together. And I copy and pasted the summary info, that is at the beginning of the chapters in the TM, into a doc for each unit.

 

So I end out with booklets that have the table of contents; followed by a unit summary, divided by the 4 chapters; and then a few pages of vocabulary and sample questions. Then the next unit with 4 chapter summaries and the corresponding vocabulary and sample questions. And so on.

 

Then I am working on printing the student book, 2 pages to a page. I've been doing it in black and white, but some of the pictures are nothing but a smudge, which I'm not sure I care about, as they are not helpful to comprehension of the text. Sometimes I get behind in this and just read the book on the computer, or even prefer to read it in color. The print out is helpful for planning, review and studying though.

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