184539 - [UX] Print preview should let you easily select the page(s) you want to print,

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Print Preview, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Ian Graham]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20021130

It would be nice if the print preview mode let you pre-select the pages
(individual pages, or page ranges) you want to print.  With Windows you can do
this from the print menu, but it's annoying having to first go through the
document in print preview mode, write down the pages you want, and then
selecting to print, typing the numbers back into the print dialog box ....

It's no better in IE, of course. 

Possible designs:
1) a 'print only this page' button that prints just the page in view
2) a text box that lets you type in page numbers of pages you want to print 
   (format - comma separated integers, or dash-separated for ranges?), 
3) or maybe a right mouse-button select menu that lets you 

    'select this page for printing'  (if it's the first page you select) or 
   
    which would add the selected page to the list of pages to print. You;d also
    need a 'do not print this page' option of some sort .... 


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Jim Scott]

Printer / Paper Size / Paper Source / Print Range / etc. etc. are all functions of the standard Windows Print dialogue window, which is customized by the PRINTER DRIVER selected (in that same window). I do not believe that Firefox can affect this window in any meaningful way without further complicating the preview / print process (which we all know already has it's own problems). I totally agree that it would be really great if we could get Bill to change the standard Windows Print Dialogue window so it offered a feature set similar to that of the Adobe Reader Print Dialogue window (which is a truly classic piece of work IMHO).

Comment 2

[Ian Graham]

I don't know how other apps do this, but here is a comparison when printing to my 'standard' printer (both cases printing via the same printer driver). 

A) Firefox: a standard printer dialog, that prompts for
Print range:
 [ ] All
 [ ] From pages [xx] to [yy]

B) MS Word - a different printer dialog with a bunch more controls that asks:
Print range:
 [ ] All
 [ ] Current Page      [ ] Selection
 [ ] Pages:  [           ]

In the pages text field you can put comma separated pages and ranges, such as
1, 3-5, 12, 14-18

So somewhere there must be hooks to get at info beyond that in the generic print dialog UI. Indeed, I can't see how page selection would be a print driver issue (it's about what you send the the driver). 

That being said, There is a broader question that probably should be asked first: what are user's desired /real printing scenarios, and how can/should Mozilla update the preview UI to support these clearly and easily. I can't claim that my comments from 8 years ago reflect what users are looking for today......

Comment 3

[Jim Scott]

Correctamundo ... page range would be application-defined. Good catch.

The rest of the parameters would be read from the printer defaults when the printer is selected.

I also assumed there is a way for the application to determine what features appear / don't appear when the Windows Print module is called. I haven't done any digging to see if there is documentation on this but the folks that do interface programming on a regular basis likely have this sort of thing memorized.

Anyhow, this issue (of the printer selection and when it happens and what happens then) is alive and well right now so if you still had a yen to get involved, doing a bug search and checking out some of the discussions going on would be apropos. 

Personally, I like the features displayed on the Adobe Reader print dialogue and the user response buttons on the M$ Office Word /Excel print dialogue. Together they would cover everyone's needs for foreseeable future, IMHO.  :-)

Comment 4

[Ian Graham]

Thanks - I will try and do some poking about on this - the main barrier is free time, and the effort it takes to find the baseline bugs / wiki pages / people who are relevant to this topic area. Any help you can offer on those fronts would be most welcome :)

Comment 5

[Ian Graham]

from what I can tell this is implemented / fixed in recent FF and TB versions .... so I'm gonna RESOLVED FIXED this and get this out of the way.