Printer alignment page
Nine numbered ladder rows, a grid of ten-millimetre squares with both diagonals, three registration targets and rulers running into the margin.
Print at 100 per cent with margins set to none — the sheet carries its own 10 mm margin, and a second one from the browser is what makes a printer shrink the page.
The ladder finds the head offset
Each of the nine rows prints an upper set of marks and a lower set displaced by a stated amount, from minus two tenths of a millimetre to plus two tenths in twentieths. On a correctly aligned printer the row that looks like one continuous set of marks is row five, the one with no offset at all. If a different row looks straightest, the number beside it is how far the head is out and in which direction — which is the figure a driver alignment routine is asking you for when it shows a row of patterns and wants a number.
Squares, diagonals and skew
Measure any square in the grid: it should be ten millimetres each way. Squares that measure ten across and nine and a half down mean the paper is advancing too little between passes, which shows in ordinary printing as horizontal banding. The two long diagonals should cross exactly at the centre of the grid and reach the opposite corners; a diagonal that misses its corner is skew, and skew is a paper feed problem — a roller, a guide set too loose, or a sheet loaded crooked.
How much paper your printer cannot reach
Rulers are printed into the top and left margins, marked in millimetres from the edge of the paper, and corner marks sit at three, six and ten millimetres in from each corner. Whatever is missing from the printed sheet is the border your printer refuses to touch. It is worth knowing before you design anything that goes near an edge, and it is the honest answer to "why did my full-bleed print come out with a white line".
Common questions
How do I align my printer with this page?
Print it, find the ladder row whose two halves line up best, and read the offset beside it. Then run the alignment routine in your printer driver and enter or verify that figure — this sheet measures the error, the driver applies the correction.
My squares are not square. Is that alignment?
No, that is paper advance. Alignment moves the head sideways; a square that is short in one direction means the sheet is being stepped by the wrong amount between passes, which is a feed or roller issue.
Why is the printed sheet missing its outermost corner marks?
Because every printer has a border it cannot print in, usually three to five millimetres. The marks are placed at three, six and ten millimetres precisely so that the first set to survive tells you how wide yours is.