Question

Hi Matt -

I did look at the Knowledge Base article Firefox prints incorrectly and found nothing along the lines of my problem. I also reset the print settings but am still unable to print a selection. Of note is that this pertains only to email.

I am using Windows XP and have the same problem with Print Selection printing blank pages when selected print is from emails. When I try to select text from other webpages it cuts off some of the first lines.

Also tried to reset print setting but it did not help.

I have an HP 2175 all in one printer and since my update I can no longer print "Selection" only! Please help - Wasting a lot of ink printing things I do not need! I tried to reset and also still have the problem! Think I will have to delete the newer version and reload the old one - not else seems to work.

Any idea how we can get someone at Firefox to seriously look into this issue?

I am going to report a "BUG" This is the only link I can find! https://bugzilla.mozilla.org

Related discussion going on here with another HP model and Firefox 11: Print Selection no longer working for Firefox only using a HP Laserjet 1100.

dolphinmoon's bug filing: 738373 – I have an HP 2175 all in one printer and since my update I can no longer print "Selection" only.

Another recent bug filing showing progress toward a fix, at least for some scenarios: 736915 – Print Selection prints a blank page when the selection is inside a table in SeaMonkey2.8 & Firefox11 and later.

Please note this Bugzilla etiquette: you can register and vote for a bug to be fixed, but please don't post any "me too" or "why hasn't this been fixed" comments. Comments are emailed to the developers listed on teh bug, and "bug spam" can cause people to remove themselves from the bug, which is counterproductive if you want to get it fixed.

Thank you jscher2000 for attempting to find a solution to this problem. It used to be (before the update last week) really easy to print a paragraph of text instead of the whole page or document. I am no longer able to do this. "Print Selection" is still an option under Print but it prints a blank page. Very inconvenient and huge waste of paper and ink. There has to be a quick solution to this problem.

zbsca, do you have this problem on all pages, or only some? The bug in the process of being fixed involves selections inside an HTML table. Many sites are laid out in HTML tables, although in modern designs, you find far fewer set up that way.

I use pdfFactory, so if I print to PDF I can see immediately whether there is a problem. You could install the evaluation version for debugging. Sorry, didn't notice you were a Mac user. Is there a "print to PDF" option on the Mac?

My usual strategy for printing selections is to use a bookmarklet to remove everything else on the page and then print normally. This old thread has more information: Printing selection.

Note: A faster way to add a bookmarklet is as follows.

First, copy the entire script code to the clipboard. (From the above thread.)

Next, if you are not displaying the Bookmarks Toolbar, use View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar to display it. (If you aren't displaying the classic menu bar, you can use Alt+v to open the View menu.)

Right-click on the Bookmarks Toolbar and choose New Bookmark.

Paste the code into the Location box (the second box).

Then type a useful name in the Name box (e.g., Crop4Print) and click Add.

Now, when you want to hack the page, click the button to run the script.

Thanks once again for your efforts to solve this problem. It is happening on all pages. For example, if there is a very long email thread and i only want to print one of the threads, I used to be able to select that thread, then click print, click print selection and only the selection would print. Unfortunately, your way is much more complicated.

This is a known bug. A fix is being worked on for it the next version of Firefox.

The next update...when will that be?

Firefox 12 is due out April 24th. I'm not sure how you can confirm that it will be fixed in that version. Someone who understands Bugzilla better than I do might be able to determine that.

Yep, the release is scheduled for April 24th (or thereabouts). The fix hasn't landed in beta yet but I'll be sure to update the thread when it has so you can switch over to the beta channel and get the fix right away.

Thank you, I would appreciate it.

I have the same problem. It stated with last update

Since installing ff 11 I have been unable to print selected gems of wisdom from a forum thread I'm following. I choose the selection option on the print menu and the printer spits out a page with the header on top and the footer at the bottom and nothing in between. It's April 24. How much longer for the fix?

This is fixed in Firefox 12 (which released today). Go to www.mozilla.org/firefox to download the updated version.

I downloaded the new version this morning and it is now working! Yeah! Thanks for addressing this problem!

Windows XP. I downloaded Firefox 11 and have also had problems with printing. A selection will print but if it is at the bottom of a page, for instance, the printer scrolls through the paper to the original position at the bottom. It will not print a selection at the top of a page. If I print 2 pages, it stops at the end of the first one and tells me to turn the paper over. I need to press 'resume' to carry on. I have just downloaded Firefox 12 and am VERY disappointed to discover that nothing has changed. Any suggestions, please? Printing is fine if I revert to Internet Explorer.

Hi mallard, yes, for as long as I can remember, Firefox preserves the position of the selection on the page when printing it. It's an extra step to take, but I use a bookmarklet to resolve that issue. If you scroll up to my long reply about a month ago (on page 1 of this thread), I posted more details on that.

Hi jscher2000, Thank you very much for taking the trouble to reply. I followed your threads and it has worked perfectly. I am delighted! I have used Firefox for some time now and my selections always printed at the top of the page until I downloaded Firefox 11. It was not a problem before. Many thanks. Success!!

Yes, FF12 seemed to have fixed the "print selection" problem of FF11. It looks though we now have a potential new problem related to the top print margin.

Say, we want to select printing from a multi-page internet document. In case we start to select near the top of that page, it prints the selection sort of as marked. But if we select say from the middle of the first page, the actual print will start at the middle of a page, rather than at the preset general top print margin. (The top half of the printed page is blank). It looks as if the (printed) top margin now is its relative location (top to bottom) on the internet page.

BTW: Everything described above worked fine before FF11.

The operating system is XP, Printer Canon MX700.

Thank you..

It looks as if the (printed) top margin now is its relative location (top to bottom) on the internet page.

Hi RolfBeyer, I have often had that issue in Firefox over the years, although depending on the page layout and styles, I've also seen the opposite problem (elements have a negative margin that pushes them into the unprintable top part of the page).

My workaround has been to use a bookmarklet as described in my long reply on the first page of this thread. I realize that's inconvenient, but at the time I wrote it, my alternative was to copy/paste into Word, so it was a relative improvement...

I can't recall whether there is an official bug to change how print selection positions the selected text on the printed page, but it might be worth searching for.

Hi jscher2000, Thank you very much for sending your observations and and suggestions related to my post. I'll try them..

Reading your earlier posts regarding the FF "print selection" issue. I'm a bit surprised to see that this issue has been around for some time.

I have been using FF very successfully for many years. My problem seemed to appear just recently and with FF11, (blank pages) and FF12 (top margin). Just my observation - not a complaint.

Reading your earlier posts regarding the FF "print selection" issue. I'm a bit surprised to see that this issue has been around for some time.

Upon further testing, it does seem much more extreme now.

This might be easier than the bookmarklet: the add-on Nuke Anything Enhanced has the option to remove everything except your selected text from the page. Then you can print normally (i.e., without choosing the Selection bubble). I don't see a feature to undo that, so you would need to reload the page afterwards in order to continue working with it.

(Moved screen shot to next reply...)

Sequence of screen shots using Nuke Anything Enhanced.

Hi jscher2000. Thank you very much for suggesting Nuke Anything Enhanced and even sending a demo. I'm glad you did and your efforts are much appreciated.

What a slick add-on. I like it. This will solve my "print selection problems".

I don't find the Print Selection bug fixed in FF 12. The bug remains at least when tried to print to - PDF-Creator PDF-Creator <or> - HP Laserjet M1522n (PCL 6 driver)

I use the "Print Selection" method in regular basis at work so something similar, straight forward method, is required. (FF 12 / Finnish language and Win 7 Pro 64-bit).

Hi tsonen, can you provide a URL or two to sites where print selection doesn't work, indicating which part of the page you're selecting?

Hi jscher2000, here is an example: lounaslista.htm I select for example from "Maanantai" to "Tervetuloa lounaalle!"

Most of the pages I use "Print selection" method are https behind username and password so I cannot provide links.

You're right, I have the same problem with lounaslista.htm. That page has a bizarre Microsoft Office-generated layout, which probably isn't a part of anyone's testing for patches. Perhaps the code fix missed something that needed for this kind of page? I don't know the details of the fix. I'm going to look into this a bit more after hours.

Edit: The print selection bug now says "reopened" - 736915 – Print Selection prints a blank page when the selection is inside a table in SeaMonkey2.8 & Firefox11 and later.