Pixma Pro9000 and museum etching paper

Just experimenting with my new pro9000 and the Canon 13x19 museum etching paper. I tried to cut the paper in half ( 13x9.5 ) and feed it through the front tray choosing custom paper size of 9.5x13 . Then I told CS2 to print an 8x12 photo. I got an error message that custom size and museum etching paper was not an acceptable combination and it gave me a choice of A3, a3+ , A4, or art letter sizes.
Somehow I got it to print a 5.2 by 8.5 photo at the Art Letter size (Fit to Media). Beautiful print but not the size I wanted.

Do I have to feed the entire 13x19 sheet just to get an 8x12 photo printed from the front tray? Canon documentation is kind of skimpy.

Steve,

You are having a similar problem to one I'm having with my Epson R2880, but in my case I'm trying to print an A4 canvas.

The solution that has been suggested to me might be worth explaining, as yet it's not been tested, but give me 24 hours and it will be:

My printer refuses to print Canvas at less than A3, A4 is refused! So I've been told to buy a sheet of A3 card and carefully attach the canvas dead centre, making sure the edges are fully secure and cannot lift (maybe even taping over the edges). Then size my image as an A4 and just before printing, resize the paper to A3 and print without resizing the image. The idea is to force it to print an A4 size image in the centre of what it thinks is an A3 sheet of canvas.

Richard,

Good luck on your experiment. I don't think that would work with my museum etching paper since it is already the thickness of mattboard and attaching that to another sheet would probably be too thick for the printer to handle. I got email from Canon saying that the entire 13" x 19" paper had to be loaded at once for the Pro9000 to print on this museum paper. That's not true with any of the other papers though, so I'll just avoid this thick paper. I haven't tried canvas yet. Let me know how you made out.

Steve.

Steve,

I failed! The printer rejected the card. I have no idea why.