7 ms·

Wow, Ctrl+P has now started to open the proper print-interface with a preview! I've helped loads of people over the years complaining about printing in Fx vs Ch

Wow, Ctrl+P has now started to open the proper print-interface with a preview! I've helped loads of people over the years complaining about printing in Fx vs Chrome. It used to be so in Fx that selecting Print from the menu opened an interface for printing (ala Chrome), but pressing Ctrl+P just opened standard OS print dialog. So power users never saw the nice print preview.

betamaxthetape 6y ago
As someone who always used the Ctrl-P keyboard shortcut, I never even knew that a print-with-preview interface existed in Firefox.
- dtx1 6y ago
  It never even occured to me to use the menu version. What an upgrade
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    you guys made me read the menu shortcuts .. didn't know reader mode and all-tabs had them (in order CTRL-ALT-R and CTRL-SHIFT-TAB)
    - _Microft 6y ago
      May I blow your mind? ;) Ctrl-1 to Ctrl-8 accesses the first eight tabs directly, Ctrl-9 jumps to the last tab. Enjoy!
      - jdfellow 6y ago
        I didn't know about the Ctrl-9. Thanks.
      - agumonkey 6y ago
        I think you meant Alt-N and yeah I did know (don't even know how but I use it every day since forever..)
        Raphael_Amiard 6y ago
        It'll be alt-n on mac's I think!
      - dotancohen 6y ago
        Try Tridactyl. You can access any tab directly with `b`.
- iso1631 6y ago
  I'm on Firefox 84, pressing file/print or ctrl-p brings up a preview window on the left, printer selection on the right.
  - jwatt 6y ago
    The new print interface has been progressively released to a subset of users over multiple releases. It's only gone to 100% of users as of Firefox 86.
    - runarberg 6y ago
      I guess I was in the early rollout. I was in the middle of designing a print layout about a month or two ago when firefox got updated. After a restart I suddenly was missing the print preview option in the menu to test my design. I was really glad to see that I could from now on just press Ctrl + P and get a much better experience.
    - pabpab 6y ago
      it does not work here the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference to `false´ fix described below helped
bradstewart 6y ago
Wow. I switched to Firefox around the same time I switched a Mac for work, and just assumed the lack of print preview was a weird macOS thing. This makes me happy.
- lucideer 6y ago
  fwiw Firefox always had a print preview; it was just behind a different shortcut rather than integrated into the default flow.
  - bradstewart 6y ago
    I would have literally never discovered that without this post. I honestly forgot there was a File->Print button until I read this. Ctrl/cmd+P is jus burned into my muscle memory.
  - frosted-flakes 6y ago
    The old Print Preview actually allowed you to inspect the page with the Developer Tools. Which was great for debugging print-specific CSS. I don't think that's possible with the new Print Preview, but the new one is better in every other way.
    - folknor 6y ago
      Should be possible using the Browser Toolbox to inspect the entire interface? I just checked and the HTML is definitely in the inspector at least, but I'm not sure what your requirements are.
      - lights0123 6y ago
        What do you mean by "Browser Toolbox"? Firefox doesn't have Chrome's @media (print) emulation.
        folknor 6y ago
        https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Browser_Toolbox https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Browser_Toolb... The Browser Toolbox is the normal DOM inspector, just extended to the whole user interface. If you open the print preview, then open the Browser Toolbox, you can inspect the preview and edit styles just like any other document. Also, @media print {} works fine, I just tested it. But I'm not sure how that relates to the original question.
callmeal 6y ago
For those of us that prefer the OS print dialog, how can we stop this madness?
- jwatt 6y ago
  We intend to add a keyboard shortcut for this[1]. In the meantime you can revert to the old printing interface by setting the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference to `false` via the page `about:config`. In a few releases time, after we've finished integrating user feedback and polishing rough edges, we intend to remove that preference though. 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1667950 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1667950
  - nogridbag 6y ago
    We have an application using a web based PDF viewer (PDFTron) and printing PDFs has always been a pain point. That library supports "embedded printing" which only works on Chrome (https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overview/embedded-printing https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overv...). So for now we're advising our customers to use Chrome for our application. Do you know if this is something being improved upon? Sorry this is a bit OT!
    - jwatt 6y ago
      Offhand I'm not sure what functionality Firefox is missing that has caused them to only support Chrome. I'd be interested in taking a look though if you have their paid support and can persuade them to either file a bug[1] (or to give you sufficient technical information so that you can file a bug). 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Core&component=Printing%3A%20Output https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Core&comp...
      - nogridbag 6y ago
        Thanks! I'll get in contact with their support. Too late to edit my earlier post. The link to their embedded printing is: https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overview/#embedded-printing https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overv...
driverdan 6y ago
This doesn't appear to be new in 86. I'm on 85 and it has preview when I hit Cmd+P.
purerandomness 6y ago
Oh my god! I've never seen the proper print interface and always assumed Mozilla simply didn't care about printing.
drewzero1 6y ago
I noticed that! I've been using the print preview from the File menu (a bit cumbersome with menus hidden and without a dedicated shortcut) and noticed that I didn't have the option this week. I seem to remember the controls for page fit being a little better with the old print preview, but my real complaint is with websites that don't scale well to print rather than Firefox's method of printing them.
limeblack 6y ago
They really should have option to match chrome shortcuts and windows. Ctrl+Shift+N works in Chrome but in Firefox its Ctrl+Shift+P.

betamaxthetape 6y ago

As someone who always used the Ctrl-P keyboard shortcut, I never even knew that a print-with-preview interface existed in Firefox.

dtx1 6y ago
It never even occured to me to use the menu version. What an upgrade
- agumonkey 6y ago
  you guys made me read the menu shortcuts .. didn't know reader mode and all-tabs had them (in order CTRL-ALT-R and CTRL-SHIFT-TAB)
  - _Microft 6y ago
    May I blow your mind? ;) Ctrl-1 to Ctrl-8 accesses the first eight tabs directly, Ctrl-9 jumps to the last tab. Enjoy!
    - jdfellow 6y ago
      I didn't know about the Ctrl-9. Thanks.
    - agumonkey 6y ago
      I think you meant Alt-N and yeah I did know (don't even know how but I use it every day since forever..)
      - Raphael_Amiard 6y ago
        It'll be alt-n on mac's I think!
    - dotancohen 6y ago
      Try Tridactyl. You can access any tab directly with `b`.
iso1631 6y ago
I'm on Firefox 84, pressing file/print or ctrl-p brings up a preview window on the left, printer selection on the right.
- jwatt 6y ago
  The new print interface has been progressively released to a subset of users over multiple releases. It's only gone to 100% of users as of Firefox 86.
  - runarberg 6y ago
    I guess I was in the early rollout. I was in the middle of designing a print layout about a month or two ago when firefox got updated. After a restart I suddenly was missing the print preview option in the menu to test my design. I was really glad to see that I could from now on just press Ctrl + P and get a much better experience.
  - pabpab 6y ago
    it does not work here the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference to `false´ fix described below helped

bradstewart 6y ago

Wow. I switched to Firefox around the same time I switched a Mac for work, and just assumed the lack of print preview was a weird macOS thing. This makes me happy.

lucideer 6y ago
fwiw Firefox always had a print preview; it was just behind a different shortcut rather than integrated into the default flow.
- bradstewart 6y ago
  I would have literally never discovered that without this post. I honestly forgot there was a File->Print button until I read this. Ctrl/cmd+P is jus burned into my muscle memory.
- frosted-flakes 6y ago
  The old Print Preview actually allowed you to inspect the page with the Developer Tools. Which was great for debugging print-specific CSS. I don't think that's possible with the new Print Preview, but the new one is better in every other way.
  - folknor 6y ago
    Should be possible using the Browser Toolbox to inspect the entire interface? I just checked and the HTML is definitely in the inspector at least, but I'm not sure what your requirements are.
    - lights0123 6y ago
      What do you mean by "Browser Toolbox"? Firefox doesn't have Chrome's @media (print) emulation.
      - folknor 6y ago
        https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Browser_Toolbox https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Browser_Toolb... The Browser Toolbox is the normal DOM inspector, just extended to the whole user interface. If you open the print preview, then open the Browser Toolbox, you can inspect the preview and edit styles just like any other document. Also, @media print {} works fine, I just tested it. But I'm not sure how that relates to the original question.

callmeal 6y ago

For those of us that prefer the OS print dialog, how can we stop this madness?

jwatt 6y ago
We intend to add a keyboard shortcut for this[1]. In the meantime you can revert to the old printing interface by setting the `print.tab_modal.enabled` preference to `false` via the page `about:config`. In a few releases time, after we've finished integrating user feedback and polishing rough edges, we intend to remove that preference though. 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1667950 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1667950
- nogridbag 6y ago
  We have an application using a web based PDF viewer (PDFTron) and printing PDFs has always been a pain point. That library supports "embedded printing" which only works on Chrome (https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overview/embedded-printing https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overv...). So for now we're advising our customers to use Chrome for our application. Do you know if this is something being improved upon? Sorry this is a bit OT!
  - jwatt 6y ago
    Offhand I'm not sure what functionality Firefox is missing that has caused them to only support Chrome. I'd be interested in taking a look though if you have their paid support and can persuade them to either file a bug[1] (or to give you sufficient technical information so that you can file a bug). 1. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Core&component=Printing%3A%20Output https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Core&comp...
    - nogridbag 6y ago
      Thanks! I'll get in contact with their support. Too late to edit my earlier post. The link to their embedded printing is: https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overview/#embedded-printing https://www.pdftron.com/documentation/web/guides/print/overv...

driverdan 6y ago

This doesn't appear to be new in 86. I'm on 85 and it has preview when I hit Cmd+P.

purerandomness 6y ago

Oh my god! I've never seen the proper print interface and always assumed Mozilla simply didn't care about printing.

drewzero1 6y ago

I noticed that! I've been using the print preview from the File menu (a bit cumbersome with menus hidden and without a dedicated shortcut) and noticed that I didn't have the option this week. I seem to remember the controls for page fit being a little better with the old print preview, but my real complaint is with websites that don't scale well to print rather than Firefox's method of printing them.

limeblack 6y ago

They really should have option to match chrome shortcuts and windows. Ctrl+Shift+N works in Chrome but in Firefox its Ctrl+Shift+P.