JLV Patterns - Downloading, Printing & Trouble Shooting FAQ's

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

This post isn't specifically Felicity Sew Along related as it applies to all of my patterns, but I've been meaning to write up a Downloading, Printing and Trouble Shooting FAQ's page for sometime now, and during a sew along seemed appropriate.

I'm very thankful to have not had too many issues when it comes to people accessing, downloading and printing my patterns, but sometimes things pop up that I think would be useful for others to know. It also means I can point people who are having similar issues over here so I'm not repeating myself.

All of these issues have popped up over the past (almost!) year, and this post will always be updated as and when new issues may arise, so if you're having a problem, or have had one and managed to figure it out, do let me know so I can add it in here :)

Downloading your Pattern:

1. Where is my pattern? Why hasn't it been emailed to me?


  • Have you verified your Etsy account? If you've set up a new account, Etsy will send you an email to verify your account, if you don't do this, you can't download your pattern.
  • Once you've made a purchase from my shop, your pattern is available for you to download from your Etsy account immediately. It will always live in your Etsy account should you ever need to download it again.

    To find your pattern, head up to the You button in the top right-hand corner of the Etsy screen. Click this and a drop down box will appear. From there, click Purchases & Reviews and scroll down until you find your pattern purchase.

    Once you've found it, click the blue Download button which will take you to another page. At the top of that page is another Download button, click this and save it to your computer.
Unfortunately Etsy DOES NOT email patterns to you. Sorry!

2. I've downloaded my pattern, but where is it?

When saving your pattern to your computer, most computers will automatically choose a place to save it, and sometimes these places make absolutely no sense!

So, before you click save, make sure that you've chosen to save your pattern to a folder you can find easily (or to your desk top!) and not just to the folder (within the folder within the other folder) your computer has automatically chosen.

3. My pattern looks like code when I open it!

My patterns are PDF's so you need a PDF reader to open them. Using Word, Word Pad or Open Office for example WILL result in your pattern looking like code. This is because these are text readers, not PDF readers.

There are lots of PDF readers you can download for free on the internet, I recommend using Adobe Reader.

However, even if you have a PDF reader installed, sometimes your computer automatically chooses to open the pdf using software that can't read it. To stop it doing this, right click your saved pattern and choose 'Open with...' and select your PDF reader.

Printing your Pattern:

I have a detailed tutorial on printing and putting my patterns together here, they are designed to print on both A4 and US Letter size paper. ALL pattern pages should print with a border and page numbers in the bottom right-hand corner.

However, some people have encountered issues that are easily resolved, try one of these first if you're having issues -

My pattern is falling off the page! or My Test Box isn't printing to the correct size!

Before you try anything else, please make sure you are printing your pattern to either 'Actual Size' or 'Scale: 100%' as stated in your pattern instructions. You should not need to centre your pattern.

If it's still not working, try the below - 
  • Make sure you have saved your pattern to your computer and are printing from the saved version. Printing a pattern that is open from your internet browser will cause the pattern to not print out correctly.

  • For everyone else I've encountered with patterns not printing to scale, it's always been because of a pesky printer setting they didn't know was ticked.  Try this: below the 'Actual Size' box may be a box called 'Choose paper source by PDF page size' that is ticked. Un-tick this box and try printing again.

  • If that doesn't work, have a look at your printer settings first as there may be something else that is ticked (or un-ticked!) that shouldn't be.

If you've tried all of the above and are still having issues downloading or printing your pattern correctly, please send me an email with your issue as as well as whether you're on a Mac or PC to jenniferlauren.is@gmail.com and a screen shot of your printer settings box, and I'll get my tech guy straight onto it.

xx
J
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