For scaling the printout, you may have better luck using Firefox's own setting. It is easiest to do that in Print Preview so you can see the effect in real time, but you also can use the Page Setup dialog.

• Print Preview is available using either:
  • "3-bar" menu button > Print
  • (menu bar) File > Print Preview

• Page Setup is available using:
  • (menu bar) File > Page Setup

If you don't usually display the menu bar, tap the Alt key to display it temporarily, or press Alt+f to drop down the File menu.

Does that make any difference?

What is the other setting that you need to change?

Yes, I understand that I can adjust the scaling in the manner you suggest. Thanks for that. What I would like to do is this: when the preferences box is displayed I would like at that point to select scaling of 65% for this job and, following that, select a different print profile to the norm (one with a greater density of print). I'd then like to print the document which would exhibit the 65% scaling plus the special print profile. I'm an eighty-year old, not as sharp as I once was, but I'm sure this should be achievable. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated...Thanks, Peter

an additional problem I have just discovered is that the site from which I wish to print (Finance organisation) does not permit the selection of print choices in the manner you suggest ( I receive no pop-up from ALT and no response from ALF +F). No problem with other sites. The site I wish to print from offers the PRINT PREFERENCES box but Firefox ignores what is entered, as I described initially

Does the Ctrl+P shortcut work?

See also:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Prevent_websites_from_disabling_new_window_features

You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/about:config

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't really want to be getting out of my depth here. It looks to me like the site I'm wanting to print from (Financial organisation) disables the input I enter in print properties and just uses the printer's standard settings. In other sites I am able to tailor my printing however I want it. It's a damn nuisance but it looks like I'll have to wear it! All the CNTRL+P, ALT , ALT=F work on other sites but not the one that's giving me trouble. Thanks for all your input, however. It's appreciated.....unless you can suggest a quick and easy solution based on what I've related to you....Peter

Just one final word, which may be important. You may have heard of Internet Explorer. I've tested what I want to do and it works fine with IE! The problem is that IE is so damned slow that there's a danger I'll have forgotten what it was I was doing before IE can get the data together......I really don't want to go there; that is use IE

Hi Peter, is the problem with a PDF document? Financial sites commonly use a PDF document for research reports and statements that need to have a very controlled format. Usually you can tell it's a PDF because the document will have a custom toolbar with its own print icon. I think in that case, Firefox's Page Setup dialog is not used because the document already is preformatted. But I don't know why the Preferences wouldn't work in that case.

Thanks jscher. I enter quite a bit of data into the system on line, which is then manipulated. I am then presented with the results to print, with a tab labelled PRINT. It does not appear to be a PDF. When I select PRINT I am presented with the printer preferences box...I then select my preferences which are ignored and Firefox prints with the standard settings. Please read the above; it looks like I'll have to learn to live with it....Peter

Thanks to all you folk who so readily suggested solutions to my problem. I solved it by downloading SAFARI and it performed the job perfectly! I'd like to be able to achieve that with FIREFOX but beggars can't be choosers. Thanks anyway...Peter

Hmm, I don't think Safari for Windows has been updated for the past 2 years. I wouldn't consider it secure for general browsing, but it might be safe to use on that site. Good luck.

Thanks jscher2000. Yes I was aware of that; I thought that I'd give it an opportunity with this print task, and it performed it very well. Yes, FIREFOX for all other activities and until FIREFOX responds to the print requirement I need. Thanks for all the assistance given by you et alia...Peter

Just to come back to this problem. Refresh your memory with the above then I'll tell you that I have in fact been using Firefox for the print job and printing the full page which Firefox presents - I really want to print at 66%. (IE really is just too slow!) I've now established that the file presented by the system is a FLASH file. IE handles it OK but despite going through the options Firefox presents (selecting 66% for example), Firefox ignores the settings I make and prints the whole page. Does the revelation that it is Flash open up any solutions to you experts? Thanks...Peter

I can't recall ever printing Flash as a full page plugin.

Have you considered defining a second Windows printer corresponding to the same physical printer, and giving it a different paper size setting? I don't know whether that works in Windows 8.1.

1. "Custom" or non-standard Printer settings via the Preferences dialog box aren't affected by the Page Setup % settings in Firefox; it's one or the other. Been like that since day one with Firefox back in the summer of 2002, and one thing that took some getting used to in Firefox vs what I was able to do in IE 6. Probably like that due to Firefox being a cross-Operating System browser, where IE was made for Windows only - except for the few years that MS made a version of IE for Apple before they came up with Safari. And the Apple version was lacking in features like that, which were in the Windows versions of IE. Plus, MS never made a version of IE for Linux, Solaris, and the rest of the OS's that have been supported by Netscape and Mozilla over the last 20 years.

2. PDF.js is a slightly different situation. From my experience the creator of the PDF "controls" how the pages are to be printed; it's coded into the formatting of the document as it is being created.Page Setup settings the user has set in Firefox have no effect when printing PDF documents. Quite possibly that might be changed in the future as PDF.js is developed further, but IMO a "Request for Enhancement" Bugzilla report would need to be filed [no, I didn't look to see if a Bug report for that has already been filed] to add that capability to Firefox PDF printing.

The one thing that I miss most is a "ring" left margin offset for PDF pages that I want to print and save to a ring binder for reference purposes.

jscher2000 said

I can't recall ever printing Flash as a full page plugin. Have you considered defining a second Windows printer corresponding to the same physical printer, and giving it a different paper size setting? I don't know whether that works in Windows 8.1.

I've tried setting up another printer using what I already have connected. Windows 8.1 permits me to do that but messages that I attempt to sent to it are marked as errors. Thanks for all your help but I'm now proposing to fix my problem by adjusting the printer attributes whenever I want to do this particular job and then reverting to the standard settings after I've finished. As I say, IE can do it and Chrome used to do so before removing access to the Printer Dialog at the end of last year. Perhaps Firefox will rise to the occasion in the future. Thanks again