Printing

IT'S FINISHED!! Finally, after many many months of scribbling, typing, coding and testing, my dissertation has come to an end. Well, apart from the poster session next week but that requires very little thought. I have spent most of today trying to print the damned thing, 60+ sides of A4 twice over is not a fun task. If the printer isn't complaining it's run out of (or lost track of) some of its cartridges then it's complaining about no paper.

It took me long enough to add simple chapter headings to each page for which amongst all of Microsoft Words many features, dynamic chapter headings aren't one of them and as such you have to section page break after each chapter and do it manually. That took up about two hours and I didn't even bother attempting to make my margins right. Supposedly the left margin needs to be 3.5cm and the right 2.5 - the left being bigger for binding. My margins are set to 1.5cm. I usually double sided print my work to save paper and cannot fathom why the margins would need to be so large. I did try changing them and my page count shot up to 70+ pages and screwed up the entire layout of my document. It could have taken days to sort it all out again and so I chose to ignore it. If I am deducted marks for incorrect page layout then that to me seems fairly hash - especially seeing as the guidelines are hidden deep within the page links of the project website.

Whilst printing I had to change three cartridges - I have mentioned my hatred of printers before and probably will do again but why on earth it feels the need to refuse to print without all of its cartridges installed is beyond me. If I wanted to just print in black and white, I would have no choice but to by the three cartridges for cyan, magenta and yellow.

Rant over, today is supposed to be a day of celebration and I will certainly feel like a huge weight has been lifted tomorrow when it gets handed in.