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Printer tests · Print-true

Printer alignment test page

A printable alignment sheet with vernier offset ladders for both axes, a registration grid at a 20 mm pitch, and a duplex front-and-back pair for checking that the second side lands where the first one did. Each ladder has nine rungs in a symmetric series centred on a labelled zero, and your browser draws the whole sheet at true millimeter size. There is no watermark or sign-up, and nothing you do here leaves your device.

Adjust

Print at 100% or "Actual size": at any other scale the rung labels are wrong by the same percentage. The page refuses steps below 0.1 mm and draws nothing, because the ticks themselves are 0.08 mm wide.

Details
SheetLetter 8.5×11 in Patternladders + registration Step0.20 mm · ±0.80 mm Est. ink0.5% Pages1 sheet

How this alignment test page works

Print at 100% ("Actual size"), check the two reference rules at the foot with a ruler (100 mm and 4 inches long), then read the ladders. The measurement is a vernier. In each of the nine rungs the second row of ticks is shifted by that rung's offset, and the offsets form a symmetric arithmetic series centred on zero: at the default 0.2 mm step they are −0.80, −0.60, −0.40, −0.20, 0.00, +0.20, +0.40, +0.60, +0.80 mm, each printed beside its rung. The rung whose two rows of ticks join into one unbroken set is your reading, and its label gives the displacement between those rows on your paper. There is always a zero rung and it is always labelled, because a ladder with no zero cannot tell you that nothing is wrong. The left ladder shifts its ticks horizontally along the carriage axis; the right one shifts them vertically along the paper feed. On the sheet their headings begin "Side-to-side (carriage)" and "Feed direction (paper advance)". Set the offset step anywhere from 0.1 to 2 mm and the whole series rescales with it: at a 0.5 mm step the rungs run from −2.00 to +2.00 mm. The Step readout shows the step and the range of the series, and the foot of every ladder sheet repeats the rung count, range and step, so a print you keep records how it was made. The grid-only and duplex patterns carry no ladder, so there the step control has no effect and the Step readout says so. Pick "Vernier ladders only" to give the ladders the whole page, or "Registration grid only" for the grid alone.

The registration grid under the ladders is a lattice of crosses at exactly 20 mm, with corner marks at the grid's own corners, for judging skew and drift against the paper's edges. The duplex pattern draws that grid on a front sheet and a back sheet, each titled with its side, and the front carries a one-line reminder to print both sheets double-sided and hold them to a light. Paper size, orientation and margin change how many crosses fit, where the ladders sit and how far apart their rungs are, and a wide margin can leave some rungs with fewer ticks. The offsets and the grid's 20 mm pitch stay the same. Everything is SVG geometry in real millimeters, and the page declares your paper size to the browser at print time, so nothing in the pipeline has a reason to rescale. Scale matters more here than anywhere else on this site, because you read the result off a label: a dialog printing at 94% shrinks every printed offset by 6%, so the labels no longer match the paper and nothing on the sheet looks wrong. The marks are drawn in sRGB values, not CMYK ink, and the sheet is almost all black, because alignment is a question of geometry and color would only add variables. The "Est. ink" figure is worked out from the geometry as it is drawn, which is why the ladder-only pattern comes to 0.3% on a default Letter sheet against 0.5% for the full sheet. Because every displacement is known and printed at true size, you can see the finest one your printer resolves. An offset step below 0.1 mm would displace a 0.08 mm tick by less than its own width, so the page refuses it and draws nothing; a step above 2 mm is clamped, with a note.

This ladder cannot separate a correctly aligned head from a misaligned one. Your printer's own alignment utility can read a head offset because it lays the two halves of each rung down in different carriage passes, or from different heads. This page hands your driver a single document with both rows of every rung drawn in the same ink at the same moment, and which pass or head puts them on the paper is firmware's decision. So on a sheet laid down in one pass the 0.00 rung is the one that reads continuous whatever the head is doing, and a rung label is the displacement between two printed rows, not a number to enter in a driver; that number comes from your printer's own utility. The page also cannot measure printed color, because a browser has no instrument on the output side and reading a printed mark takes a colorimeter or a spectrophotometer.

Frequently asked questions

How do I read the vernier alignment ladders?
Each ladder has nine rungs and each rung is a pair of tick rows: the first row sits at the nominal position, the second is displaced by that rung's labelled offset. Look for the rung whose two rows read as one continuous set of ticks with no step between them. Its label is the displacement between those two rows as they landed on the paper, and it is not your printer's head offset: both rows are drawn in the same ink in one document, this page cannot choose which carriage pass or which head prints each of them, and on a sheet laid down in a single pass the 0.00 rung is the one that reads continuous whether the head is aligned or not. Use the ladder as a fixed reference. It shows the finest displacement your printer resolves, and if some rung other than 0.00 reads continuous, something is moving the marks, though the sheet cannot tell you what. The left ladder displaces side to side along the carriage axis; the right one displaces along the paper feed. The ladder asks whether two rows line up because people answer "is that one line or two" far more reliably than they judge a fraction of a millimeter.
What is the duplex front and back option for?
It prints two pages carrying the same registration grid. Run them through as a double-sided job, then hold the sheet up to a light: if the crosses on the back sit exactly over the crosses on the front, the two passes agree. If they are consistently displaced in one direction, the offset you can measure against the 20 mm grid pitch is your duplex registration error. That is a different fault from head alignment and is usually adjusted somewhere else in the driver. This is the one pattern that needs two pages, so the Pages readout changes to 2 sheets when you choose it.
Why does the page refuse a very fine offset step?
Because below about 0.1 mm the rungs stop being distinguishable on paper. The ticks themselves are drawn 0.08 mm wide, so an offset step finer than that would displace a line by less than its own width, and every rung would look identical. An unreadable ladder would still look like a measurement, so when you ask for a step under 0.1 mm the page explains why in a note and draws nothing. Above 2 mm it clamps the step to 2 mm and says so: a displacement that large is visible without a test sheet.
How do I print the alignment sheet at the right size?
Set the print dialog's scale to 100% (or "Actual size"). This sheet is more sensitive to scaling than most: at 94% a rung labelled 0.20 mm prints a 0.19 mm offset, so the number you read off is wrong by the same few percent the dialog applied without telling you. Every sheet prints two reference rules near the foot, one exactly 100 mm and one exactly 4 inches, so check those with a ruler first. Choosing "Save as PDF" as the destination has your browser write the file on your device, at whatever scale the dialog is set to.
Will this fix my alignment, or tell me my colors are right?
No. It neither fixes alignment nor checks color, and it does not hand you a number to type into a driver either. Use your printer's own alignment utility for that: it controls which carriage pass prints each half of its pattern, and a web page cannot, so a rung label here is the displacement between two rows on paper. For color, the marks are sRGB values handed to your browser and this page never sees the paper, so it cannot measure printed color at all; that takes a colorimeter or a spectrophotometer held against the sheet. What the page gives you is a fixed, repeatable reference at true size, so you can compare the sheet you print after an adjustment with the one you printed before it.

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