Printing, print preview, two column printing, parameters

[kaimiddleton]

Recently I had a printing task that you would think should be easy. I keep my phone numbers in a simple text file with standard 8-space tabs to make columns. I.e. column 1 is names, column 2 is phone numbers. Infinitely cross-platform, cross-application compatible. You might not believe it but it took me multiple hours to figure out how to print this! Why? I like it printed small -- 7 point or less.

I know, now, that you can do this through configure-document settings in textpad. However, I couldn't find this feature at first. I did download EditPlus and found that their implementation, under print-settings, was much clearer. E.g. I don't usually want my .txt files to print out 6 point ALL the time. Since I intend to use this phone.txt method for a long time I wanted to find a good solution. I actually ended up using mozilla to do my print job! I don't want to have to buy EditPlus

A common programmer task is to print out two columns to fit alotta source on one page. For this I use MS Word! I wish textpad had a way to do this. I remember a lot of old-fashioned utilities that could do this sort of thing and I'd find it handy in textpad.

Textpad's print preview is a little weak in terms of scrolling (the mouse-wheel doesn't work). I think MS Word is much cleaner in this regard. But I really don't want to use Word!

The printing parameters (header, footer, etc.) is very poorly designed as it forces the user to know some kind of &h &p or whatever. EditPlus is superior in this way (gives a pop up with the symbols and their meaning), and Mozilla gives a nice pull down visually oriented way to do it.

[talleyrand]

So many things to cover. Easy one's first.

While it's not a pop-up, the help menu is context sensitive. File, Page Setup and I hit the Help button, it brings up the page on How to Customize Printing. From there you want the header macros page which explains &p&b et al. It could be reworked, I give you that so make a 5 question poll and we can vote on it.

You should be able to set the font for a given document on a case by case basis. Right click on the document, Properties, Font. Chose the printer font and make it as tiny as you'd like. Not sure if the selection's persisted, actually I doubt it, but I don't see it being a major hassle.

For printing two pages on one, I believe you're looking for two-upping. I know how to handle it in PostScript via LaTeX but I don't know about doing it natively through TP. To me, it seems more like a typesetting thing than a text editor thing to do. Again, create a poll and we'll see what the masses say.

As for the preview and scrolling, I can't comment mostly because I don't have a printer installed at home.

[CyberSlug]

I agree that printing is one of TextPad's weakest points.

You may want to take a look at the free version of EditPad when it comes to printing. In addition to decent zooming and scrolling, EditPad's print screen allows you to easily change margins, fonts, and headers/footers.

I hope TextPad's producers would incorporate such features!

[Bob Hansen]

Until we see these requests implemented, you might want to take a lookat FinePrint at http://www.fineprint.com/products/fineprint/index.html. Can be used with all applications, intercepts output to printer for customizations. Works like a Print Preview with opportunities to add features not normally found on your printer. Expensive at $50, but could pay for itself. Trial version is available. Prints a notice on the bottom but perhaps some creative page lengths can buy you some more evaluation time.

Some features:

Adjustable Margins: Margin adjustment allows for increased text sizes for better readability, by using more of the printable area on the page.

Gutter Support: Gutter capability provides space for binding documents.

Multiple FinePrinters: Multiple FinePrinters can be created. This allows the creation of "virtual printers" that have different pre-defined settings. For example, you could have a "booklet printer" that automatically prints a booklet or a "letterhead printer" that prints on your letterhead without the FinePrint dialog box appearing.

Paper saving meter: shows the amount of paper saved by using FinePrint.

Other features: crash protection, auto save of print jobs, quick bypass to printer.

[CyberSlug]

I can't believe I forget to mention FinePrint; I rely on it every day!

It really does save you ink/toner, paper, and time because:
1) univeral print-preview--very useful if you accidently hit print!
2) delete unwanted pages (ever print websites that have 1 line go to a second page?)
3) save spooled print documents and export as text, image, etc (very useful even if you don't have a physical printer!)
4) n-up printing with scalable margins and optional headers/footers

[kaimiddleton]

Thanks very much for the thoughtful replies. I have analyzed each one of them and will respond as follows.

talleyrand wrote about accessing the print features. The method suggested was slightly better than the configure menu, but ... I can say that I've been using textpad frequently and with enthusiasm for three years now and when I sat down to figure this out I couldn't. I think that's a clue that the UI is opaque. So I do think it would be a good idea to look at some other strategies.

There were suggestions to look at EditPad, and FinePrint. EditPad was ok but not everything I wanted. I couldn't set the margins! I think EditPlus did a better job. Also, the behavior I'm looking for in print preview is this: every notch of the scroll wheel should take the user to the next page. This is a very fast way to view the entire document. The little buttons at the top (back, forward) are just not nearly as cool.

I use two column printing frequently with source code because I often find it very valueable when I need to study a lot of algorithm on one piece of paper. I downloaded PrintFile but it doesn't have a print preview (required for me). The FinePrint tool looks good but I can't spend $50 for just a printing tool at this time. I don't think a 2 column printing feature is too abstruse for a general text editing tool such textpad. I would rather see that than a lot of IDE features such as folding, intellisense or whatever. So I'll try to figure out how to create a poll.

[CyberSlug]

EditPad was ok but not everything I wanted. I couldn't set the margins!

You should be able drag-n-drop the margins with the mouse in the print preview screen. I'd like to see something like that (in addition to TextPad's simply typing in the margins).

[kaimiddleton]

Thanks Cyberslug for correcting me about the margins in EditPad.

In examining print preview modes in other products I notice some well implemented features. Mozilla has a nice way of implementing page forward and back buttons as VCR style buttons as well as a hard-wireable page number to jump to (which is also simply informative too). EditPlus offers two page view for print preview. MS Word offers 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 2x1, 2x2 and 2x3 print previews to get a lot of pages on screen at once.

[marinhekman]

This should be improved too:

(Copied it from another thread)

The Print option shouldn't be right below the Close option. You have no idea the number of times I had to sprint out of my chair to yank out the printer's electrical cord to halt the print job just because I accidentally chose Print instead of Close.

I would prefer any of the following:

1) Move the Print option to the bottom of the tab, underneath Properties.

2) an option to remove the Print option entirely from the right click tab.

3) open the print-dialog box instead of sending the print job directly to the default printer.