Comments on: Testing CSS for print media: we need a Print Preview for developers!

By: Shirley

Shirley — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:51:51 +0000

Yes, print preview is a chore. I usually just set up a separate print stylesheet on a development site and tweak it that way and preview across browsers. It would be great to have a comprehensive tool to simplify testing.

By: Thomas Landauer

Thomas Landauer — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:43:07 +0000

Yeah, I’m missing that reload function in print preview too! I just submitted this as an “Idea for Firefox” (looks like they discontinued the Bugzilla system for submitting requests for enhancements – so people cannot vote for anything anymore :-(

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:19:44 +0000

Yup.

Same deal over here – working on an event calendar that prints to a ‘fridge calendar.’

Not tough, but very, very, tedious going back and forth….

By: Andrea

Andrea — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:15:58 +0000

True, the first few times you don’t mind closing, refreshing, and reopening (not to mention scrolling back to the point your checking) but after a while it becomes so annoying you find yourself reconsidering the whole project! Thanks for the tips on the extensions, but they are of no help because the print preview can be completely different from the browser view w/print stylesheet, especially if you use a multi-column layout since this restarts on every printed page, but never does in a single web page. Margins can also be an issue, and I guess a number of other things… So, I’m wondering if a FF extension could add a Refresh button or shortcut to the preview environment…?

By: Mike Padgett

Mike Padgett — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:52:47 +0000

Quite right, Matt, and it’s good to hear it’s not just me!

Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar does indeed have that facility, which is useful (and it works for me).

However, maybe like me you’ve also found that there are often problems that you only discover when you actually do Print Preview or print the page, such as the one you can see in the picture which can occur with floated elements.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:04:01 +0000

No, you’re not the only one. I’m knee-deep in the middle of a project with this exact same frustration. Everything you say is true, and not a browser one (that I’ve run across, err, a browser that *really matters*) has any feature set that eases the pain we feel.

The Web Developer extension for Firefox has an attempt at facilitating print media CSS development (CSS > Display CSS be Media Type…), but I haven’t gotten it to work for me. I don’t know if it’s my CSS, or the extension itself… doesn’t seem to work.