"Hidden" key to printing long panoramas with Canon Pro-100

The Canon Pixma Pro-100 is one of photographers' favorite printers, and a good number of members of CCC own one. However, few of those who own this printer realize that it can be used to print panoramas up to 26+ inches long. Also, there's a little-known trick to getting this printer to accept "custom" paper sizes, which I just discovered after days of utter frustration. So, if you own a Pro-100 and want to successfully print long panos, read on.

This printer will accept paper up to 13 inches wide, and paper 13 by 19 inches is the largest size listed among the choices available in the list of paper sizes that comes up when setting up to make a print. To make a print longer than 19 inches, you have to select the "Custom" setting and go from there.

There a some good videos available on how to use the custom setting, the best being this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqUWMuw4pg. However, this video doesn't say anything about finding paper of the correct size or how to avoid a common error in setting the custom size dimensions, which for days was giving me a warning that my paper size setting were wrong when I was convinced they were correct.

So, first, here are some tips on finding paper that will work well for long panos in the Pro-100. I bought a pack of Red River UltraPro Satin paper sized 17 X 25 inches and simply cut the paper down to 13 inches wide. An alternative would be to buy a pack of their 13 X 38 if you want to go up to the maximum 26+ inch limit on the printer. Cost of each choice is the same.

Second, when you go to set the custom paper dimensions (described in the video), you must set the width to 12.95 inches, NOT 13 inches--even though the paper is 13 inches wide. This is the key to avoiding the problem described above. (The length can be set up to the maximum allowed by the printer.)

Anyway, I wish you well in trying this, and if you have any difficulties, let me know and I'll try to help you through them.

Gerry