<b>TGV Prems successfully printed!</b>

I was able to print the last of our tickets today.

I first ordered two tickets, and then two in a separate transaction, on August 30 (by accident - I didn't realize I could have combined the transactions). The first two printed right away, but the second refused to print.

I didn't panic, due to the experiences posted on this site. But I don't think 48 hours did it. I tried several times over the next few days, and it didn't work. I gave up for a while, figuring that on the first trip, I'd pick up tickets for the second trip.

But I tried again today, two weeks after the order, and it worked just fine. Perhaps they've fixed their bug once and for all - does anyone know?

<b>Some additional techie info</b>

The tickets come in as Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) files. Rather than just clicking on them to open them in Acrobat, I right-clicked on them, and did a &quot;Save&quot; on the .pdf file, saving them in the directory I'm using for my various trip files. I then clicked on them in Internet Explorer, and printed them that way. Having these files means I can also carry them in my laptop, and in a memory stick, and so on, so I'll have them in various places if the paper copies get lost or damaged.

I printed each ticket two ways, to see how they came out: on a monochrome laser printer, and on a color printer. Both versions look acceptable to me. Since they have some color on them, they look a bit better in the color version. But they also have a 3/4 inch square 2-D barcode on them, and that looks a bit crisper in the laser version. I'm carrying both. They're printed on standard US 8.5 X 11 inch paper, not European A-size, but I gather that doesn't cause any problems, although Acrobat might have done a small amount of scaling to make them fit.

- <i>Larry</i>

The conductor will just scan the bar code with his machine and ask for proof of identity.

I diligently folded my ticket in 4 as you are supposed to, but I saw that most people just give the sheet of paper unfolded.

The last time I did this - back in March - my ticket didn't come with a barcode, notwithstanding the sample ticket shown on the website. Apparently igTGV tix still have barcodes, but not other types of TGV tickets. (I was so thrown by the discrepancy between the sample ticket, which is shown as an igTGV ticket, and my own tickets, that I asked MorganB about it on that super long thread (version 2) about SNCF tix, just to be sure. I'd be interested to know if it was still the case, now, that non-igTGV tix don't come with barcodes.

I also was given an error message when I tried to print - in my case, it spoke of a timeout and my request having failed - but when I went to my email account and found the confirmation email, I found therein a link to the dossier from which I could print my tickets. That's the only way printing worked for me - by working from the link from my email. Granted, I didn't try to do it during weekend hours.

Darn it, I nicely folded my parents' tickets in 4s. Wasted all my time and effort! ;)

Anyways, I have a monochrome laser and a color inkjet, but for stuff with barcodes on them like tickets and boarding passes, I always use the laser. Much more likely the barcodes can be read than with the inkjet.

I'm supposed to fold them? Who knew!

It says in the middle (vertically):

<i>Veuillez plier la feuille en quatre.</i>

My computer translates it to:

<i>Please fold the sheet into four.</i>

Well, don't feel badly if nobody asks to see them at all!

This past Summer we used self-printed tickets for two TGV trips (back and forth from Paris to Bordeaux.

On the outbound trip nobody even bothered to collect/check the tickets.

On the inbound, they were checked and as pointed out above, they were cross-checked against (in our case, passport) IDs.

Well, I folded mine into what my origami instructor promised me would look like a swan, but it just ended up looking like a worm with attitude....