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Print Preview 86.0 too small to see. Also other print features now very difficult

  • 16 பதிலளிப்புகள்
  • 4 இந்த பிரச்னைகள் உள்ளது
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by jscher2000 - Support Volunteer

My print preview is no longer available, and the new one is too small to see what's on the page. It's useless! Also, simplify page is gone (I understand "Reader View") is the work-around. Also, it's many extra clicks to get to my system print controls to print properly.

Solving the print preview too small would go a long way towards keeping Firefox usable. The other things could certainly use fixing, however.

Thanks in advance! L.

(I have restored the old functionality temporarily with print.tab_modal.enabled preference set to false. Thanks community for showing me to do so! See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1322623 if you want to know how.  However, usually Firefox takes these options away soon.  )
My print preview is no longer available, and the new one is too small to see what's on the page. It's useless! Also, simplify page is gone (I understand "Reader View") is the work-around. Also, it's many extra clicks to get to my system print controls to print properly. Solving the print preview too small would go a long way towards keeping Firefox usable. The other things could certainly use fixing, however. Thanks in advance! L. (I have restored the old functionality temporarily with print.tab_modal.enabled preference set to false. Thanks community for showing me to do so! See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1322623 if you want to know how. However, usually Firefox takes these options away soon. )

All Replies (16)

The preview size is smaller when the "viewport" area (content area of the tab) is small. I think the workaround for that will be a bit complicated, but I'm going to research it further.

What does this refer to:

Ellis Eff said

Also, it's many extra clicks to get to my system print controls to print properly.

Is that "Print using the system dialog..." or settings on the overlay panel itself?

I was wrong about that. It is easy to get to the system print dialog with a single clearly labeled button.

My apologies, and thank you for following up. (I was frustrated with the change, and panicked about losing control over how it would print. Not justifying; just adding the comment to illustrate an example my user's experience and reaction.)

I also should have noted I run Windows 8.1 (up-to-date), Radeon HD graphics, 1280 x 1024 monitor.

Thanks for reporting this, Ellis. I'm one of the developers who has worked on this and I'm quite concerned about the scaling issue you're having. Would you mind taking an example screenshot of what you're seeing and using button under "Add images" below to add it here?

Some users have mentioned that their display panels have a max vertical resolution of 768 pixels. After accounting for the Taskbar, that does make for tiny text in the preview. Both the old and new preview are "fit height" for single-page printouts, but the new one is slightly smaller because it doesn't use the full available height/width. Example attached.

I think it would be nice to have a fit-width option (with scrolling to see the lower parts of pages) but I don't know how complicated that would be to implement.

Hi Ellis, thank you for that. I hadn't thought about 4x3 aspect ratio displays. There's a significant difference when I simulate 1280 x 960 (attached screenshot).

Hi Jonathan, this preview size seems to be fixed at that size for a viewport width of approximately 800-1400 pixels before it starts getting larger as I expand the width of the window. ??

Thanks for what you are doing!

FWIW, similar on a MS Surface in its native resolution of 2735 x 1824. (Windows 10 Home v2004) see attached

Hello Jefferson, does this explain "too small" ? (Sorry, needed to reduce the resolution to be able to upload.) Why cant the size of the preview be changed by the user ?? Any decent window can be resized, ever since Windows 2.0 - modal or non-modal. And please dont suggest to resize my firefox window.

aweb மூலமாக திருத்தப்பட்டது

Go to Help>Troubleshooting Information>Scroll down to Printing> Troubleshooting and clear saved print setting

Unfortunately the micro fonts will return and you have to do this again

aweb said

Hello Jefferson, does this explain "too small" ?

Yes, if your window width is narrow, the preview image doesn't take advantage of the full space available. Hopefully that can be improved in a future update.

But there's still 250 pixels reserved for the panel on the right side, so maybe you also would need a button to collapse that to make even more space for the preview.

Not sure if I'm following all this conversation correctly, but wanted to feedback that LSR Instrument Service's post 3/2/21, 10:39 AM does solve anything for me (just turns off the reversion to the old print preview).

And that my problem is the preview doesn't use the full height of the screen; it's not too narrow (but I assume you've all seen that and are working on another variation.)

Thanks!

New print page is total crap compared to the previous classic print page.

Its unworkable for someone who printed daily.

Simplify Page is gone print is too small percentage print size has gone

Print Preview has gone.

The classic worked perfectly well until some....... decided to change it.

Ive spent a week trying to restore the classic

new Print page - is unbelievably frustrating.

Hi kalkabury, on these points:

  • Simplify Page is gone => this is on the wish list to restore in a future update
  • print is too small => on lower resolution screens, the preview is smaller; this needs to be addressed
  • percentage print size has gone => you can enter any percentage you like after expanding the "More settings" but this is a number control instead of a list of fixed settings
  • Print Preview has gone => you can use Print to call up the integrated Preview/Setup/Print overlay

kalkabury said

Ive spent a week trying to restore the classic

Did you find these steps:

There is a temporary preference to switch back to the classic design of separate preview/setup/print if you can't make the new one work for you:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste tab_mo and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the print.tab_modal.enabled preference to switch between the new experience (true) and the classic experience (false)

(4) If there is another preference named app.normandy.startupRolloutPrefs.print.tab_modal.enabled you can double-click that one to switch it to false as well. If you do not have that one, no need to create it.

Since you are setting to false, it will look roughly like this:

Hi! Thanks all for work on this. I just wanted to chime in again that I am worried the "temporary preference to switch back to the classic design" via print.tab_modal.enabled = false will one day be eliminated and Firefox will become unusable.

Could that be made permanent or commented so (hopefully) no one will change functionality and eliminate it?

Hi Ellis, I appreciate your concern and I hope the style rules are revised to make better use of the space for non-maximized windows and non 16:9 windows.

If necessary, I have posted a community-supported (unofficial) workaround involving a userChrome.css file. More info in this post: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1320798#answer-1415936

This comparison image illustrates what the rules do: https://user-media-prod-cdn.itsre-sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/images/2021-05-29-14-13-57-6181ba.png