102641 - AsIs prints just one truncated page printed out

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Printing: Output, defect, P3)

Description

[Mai Mai Tsai]

Tried to print a Yahoo! mail and got 1 page of a 2 page mail and only 2/3 of the
one page is printed.

Comment 1

[sujay]

okay the problem here is that the user is trying to print a frame page
and chosing "As Laid out on the screen" . This results in just
one page coming out. This is by design.

The workaround is to select "Each frame separately" in the print
options. This will let you print out all the pages.

changing summary.

we do need to address this because in this case the user is using
a web based email service and expects to get all the pages printed
out when printing email.

Comment 2

[sujay]

also you can reproduce this problem by going to any site that has
frames like http://www.news.com

Comment 3

[sujay]

*** Bug 105091 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

I would have expected "As Laid Out on Screen" to either
do the equivalent of a screenshot (i.e., truncate where
the screen stops) or not truncate the bottom frames at
all, i.e., if the frame on the left is out of content, 
continue printing successive pages of the frame on the 
right; top frames, it would seem, should be truncated
in the way they are on the screen.  What it currently
does is truncate near the bottom of the first piece of
physical paper, substantially below the bottom of what
shows on the screen, so that it is not at all clear 
to the user that the page is being printed as shown
on the screen.  

In any case, I did not _notice_ the "As Laid Out on 
Screen" option and its various alternatives, and most
of the people who print websites are a good deal less
astute than I in terms of noticing things in dialog
boxes.  Patrons at the library where I work are 
complaining about this regularly, and while I know
what to tell them now, I should also note here what
they usually tell me:  "It only printed the first 
page.  I told it to print page 2, and it came out
blank."  I don't think printing only the first page
should be the default, and I certainly don't think
telling it to print from page 2 to 2 should result
in a blank page when the document is clearly longer
than one page.  This gives the user the impression
that the second page is unable to be printed.

Comment 5

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

Also note that Print Range was set to All.  I could understand
if the default were to have the Print Range set from 1 to 1,
but with the Print Range set to All, it really should print
successive pages.  

Adding self to Cc list.

Comment 6

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

Should this be marked 4xp?

Comment 7

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

Should this be marked 4xp?

No, 4.x does not have the capability to print "As laid out on screen"

Comment 8

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

That was, more or less, my point.

Remind me why anyone would *want* the "capability to print as 
laid out on screen" if it truncates after one page.  Is there any 
conceivable use for this new feature, as it currently stands?  
That it is the default seems totally wrong.  Printing only page 
one when the user selects "All" for the print range, or printing 
a blank page when the user selects "From 2 to 2" for the print 
range, is *not* the behavior exhibited by 4.x, nor is it the 
behavior any user would normally be expected to desire.  i.e.,
it is a bug (or a misfeature), and it is a bug (or misfeature)
that 4.x does not have.

Comment 9

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

Reassigning to Rod.

Comment 10

[Nick Hansen]

Same problem with 11.01 build under Win2K - adding myself to cc:

Comment 11

[rods (gone)]

We actually reflow "into" the page dimensions. So that is why the screen and 
the page differs. I think there is a lot of bbenefit to print the first page 
and I agree it is a little misleading that it doesn't print the second page.

We are working on being able to print the second page of a frameset document. 

Comment 12

[rods (gone)]

Just confirming.... It appears that IE prints just one page also.

Comment 13

[rods (gone)]

Here is another nice URL to test with:
http://www.postoletto.com/citta/milano/mi_of.htm

Comment 14

[rods (gone)]

I can't find a site where IE will print the second page when printing FrameSets 
"AsIs" (Win IE 6.0)

Comment 15

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

> I think there is a lot of benefit to print the first page

Sure, sometimes people want to print (only) the first page.  
The traditional way to do this is to set the print range 
from page 1 to page 1.  This is a little klunky, needing to
specify two numbers (well, one number twice) for just one 
page, but a lot of people are used to it now.  

At the least, "As laid out on screen" should indicate in
some way that it will only print the first page, if that's 
what it's going to do.  Particularly since the user has
not infrequently scrolled down one or more of the frames
before hitting print.  

Comment 16

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

Opera 5 also prints a single truncated page when printing "As Is". Note: To get
Opera to print "As Is" you must go to "print preview mode" first and set it to
"As Is" before printing. 

printing http://www.postoletto.com/citta/milano/mi_of.htm Opera "As Is" results
in a single truncated page with the contents of the left frame shrunk to a very
small size.

Comment 17

[Nick Hansen]

It may be all well and good that IE and Opera exhibit similar behavior to what
happens with this "feature", but on some level, isn't this supposed to be about
building a better browser?  I think the point the Unsightly One is making is
that, regardless of how other current browsers behave, isn't it most intuitive
for the default printing action of a browser when confronted with a page laid
out in frames to just go ahead and print out the whole page, including every
frame?  If someone wants to print specific frames or what amounts to a
screenshot, have them be the ones who have to go digging in the print options.  

Comment 18

[rods (gone)]

It's a problem that needs to be solved, it just drops in priority, that's all. 
Printing a second page is now a new feature, not an out right regression or bug. 
It's still on the list, just lower on the list.

Comment 19

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

> It's a problem that needs to be solved, it just drops in priority

Okay, this I can understand.  Printing web pages is in general 
something that many browser users don't need, I think, so it 
is reasonable that things like this cannot have the same priority 
as (e.g.) a layout bug that has an impact for most everyone.  
And the existence of a workaround lowers the priority further,
I can understand that too.

I just didn't want to see this brushed off entirely, because it 
is a significant issue for some people -- particularly people 
who don't have internet access at home and so print things in 
order to take them home.

Sorry if I came across as harsh.  I just didn't want to see
this marked WONTFIX or something like that.  A lower priority
than some other things, that I can accept.  

Comment 20

[sujay]

*** Bug 109198 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 21

[sujay]

*** Bug 110279 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 22

[sujay]

transfering keywords from marek's DUPd bug

Comment 23

[Christine Hoffman]

Tested using 11_14_22_0.9.4ec build on Win2000. Reproduced on 0.9.4 branch build

Comment 24

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

Note: IE 6 prints only a single truncated page, the same as Mozilla. 

To fix this we would need a new mechanism for re-rendering the same page and
it's associated display frames multiple times with a new offset. The current
printing mechanism reflows page elements between pages, creating new frames if
necessary so a particular frame is only rendered once.

Comment 25

[Michael Dunn]

edt094- (minus) per Kevin's email comments:
Kevin McCluskey wrote:
valeski, marek and I agreed not be placed on the branch because it would require
significant work and it is an enhancement over what both I.E and Opera do for
"print AsIs". Currently IE., Opera, and Mozilla do the same thing, which is to
print a single page.

Comment 26

[Ken]

FYI - Try www.warnerchappell.com. IE 6.0 printed the full site content (2 
pages), but mozilla will only print the first page.

Comment 27

[Ken]

Sorry, I should mention that www.warnerchappell.com example (IE vs mozilla) is 
on the 0.9.4 branch.

Comment 28

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

printing www.warnerchappell.com Using WINXP with default IE install I only get
(one) page when I set the print options to "As laid out on screen".  The default
for IE is to print "All frames individually" which does print out 2 pages.  The
default for Mozilla is to print "As is" which is equivalent to IE's "As laid out
on screen". If Mozilla is set to print "Each frame separately" it prints two pages.

The default for IE and Mozilla is not the same.

Maybe Mozilla's default should match IE's to avoid confusion.

Comment 29

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

Changing the default to match IE was split off as bug 112665

Comment 30

[rods (gone)]

Eventually "AsIs" will print more than one page but for now that is lower
priority, moving to future for now.

Comment 31

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

I don't think this one should be topembed:

The original bug was filed because the default for IE (print all frames) was
different than Mozilla (Print "As Is" (screenshot)) This was fixed by the
checkin for bug 112665, so the user experience is the same for both I.E and
Mozilla which is to print all frames.

It would require significant work and it is an enhancement over what both I.E
and Opera do for "print AsIs". Currently IE., Opera, and Mozilla do the same
thing, which is to print a single page.

Comment 32

[Jonadab the Unsightly One (Nathan Eady)]

Nit:  Also, it makes no sense for this to be both topembed 
      and PC/Win98.  One of those (at least) is wrong.  
      Actually, I suspect this should be All/All whether
      it is topembed or not.

Comment 33

[Kevin McCluskey (gone)]

Marking topembed-

Comment 34

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

I would accept what you are saying except for the fact that:

http://www.kaply.com/work/td/START.HTM

Prints out "as is" missing the top frame, and the footer says page 1 of 2 but 
only 1 page gets printed.

So if it is working as designed, it is still broke in other ways.

Comment 35

[Mike Kaply [:mkaply]]

*** Bug 132881 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 36

[btechman2002]

This event has been happening with MY version of Mozilla, printing the first
page ONLY of a multi-page Web Page when the Print Range is set to "all".  Here
is My Version:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616

and it also has been printing blank pages when I have Selected Text and has the
print range to "Selection".  However, I have a Tempoary work-around:
1.) Go to Print Preview
2.) click "Print"
3.) Select the Print Range to "Pages 1 to x" where x is the last page number.
Click "Print.

Comment 37

[Steve Kelem]

(In reply to comment #19)
> > It's a problem that needs to be solved, it just drops in priority
> 
> Okay, this I can understand.  Printing web pages is in general 
> something that many browser users don't need, I think, so it 
> is reasonable that things like this cannot have the same priority 
> as (e.g.) a layout bug that has an impact for most everyone.  
> And the existence of a workaround lowers the priority further,
> I can understand that too.
> 
> I just didn't want to see this brushed off entirely, because it 
> is a significant issue for some people -- particularly people 
> who don't have internet access at home and so print things in 
> order to take them home.

How can you say it's something that's not needed???  We are always printing drafts for review and markup, for printing my kids' homework assignments and signup forms and medical forms, etc.  It's not "needed".  It's ESSENTIAL!

Comment 38

[Steve Kelem]

The print going off the page and printing only the first page when "print all" is specified happens on non-frame pages too, e.g., http://www.consumersearch.com/www/family/electric-toothbrushes/review.html
When I try to print, the layout really leaves a lot to be desired:
1. There is a header with something on the left that's overprinted with content from the page.
2. The right side of the header has "http://www.consumersearch.com/www/fam..."  literally.  It's close to useless to try to find the url from which the page was printed.  I have to take the time to write the url on the page with a pen.  (For which my wife files a bug against my handwriting abilities.)
3. There is a footer that says "1 of 1", even though I told it to "print all pages".
4. The content goes into and past the footer instead of stopping above the footer and continuing on subsequent pages.
5. The rest of the content is not printed!

P.S. I'm using Firefox 2.0 on SuSE Linux 10.0.

Comment 39

[oliv]

I've got the same probs with a page without frames...

my page is with divs construct but have a large table within, and when the table is longer than the page, when I print, just the first page goes out...

I've tested it on Firefox 2.0 on PC and Mac...

Problem don't occurs on Safari or IE...

P.S. Think it's a very old problem that need to bo corriged... ;)

Comment 40

[Wesley Carver]

My page is also with divs construction and a large table within, and when the
table is longer than the page, just the first page prints. IE prints all pages.

Using Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Win XP

Header and footer are printed on separate pages, and only one "paper" page is printed of data from the table. (Wachovia online banking site, kind of important for me to print out   A L L   of my transactions, not just first page)

OH, and the whole "print frames" box is greyed out.

Comment 41

[Jan Bielawski]

This must be fixed. The "print first page by default" behavior is completely counter intuitive and annoying. It also affects the preview. For the life of me I cannot understand who would ever want to print just the first page by default! When selecting "Print", a window pops up listing precisely what it's going to do: either "All" or a range or current or whatever. How could this by any more obvious? Firefox overriding this by some unexplained behind-the-scenes-default is just WRONG. I tried printing out the page http://linuxshellaccount.blogspot.com/2008/03/beginning-your-spec-file-for-building.html and when the preview showed me just one page I tried opening the main frame only and found out I couldn't (try it). At that point I downloaded and installed Opera which printed everything perfectly. (I'm not switching to Opera, but if this is any indication, I better keep it for emergencies.)

Comment 42

[C William Underwood]

In firebug, there's usually a rule "overflow: hide;".  Changing that to 'show', or merely deleting the rule, fixes printing.  This works in blogger's themes at the very least.

Is there some way to have a printing-only stylesheet with a rule like "overflow: show !important"?

Comment 43

[Daniel Holbert [:dholbert]]

(In reply to comment #42)
> In firebug, there's usually a rule "overflow: hide;".

That's bug 129941. Please direct any further "overflow:hidden"-related printing comments there.

> Is there some way to have a printing-only stylesheet with a rule like
> "overflow: show !important"?

Yes, with the "Stylish" extension -- see bug 129941 comment 59.  You can probably make it print-only using "@media print" -- see syntax at http://www.w3.org/TR/css-print

Comment 44

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Much of the discussion here involves options and UI that doesn't exist any more. Let's close this and if anyone still has an issue with the current behavior please open a fresh bug and comment noting that bug number here.