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Print specifications

Once you have successfully added your printer to the List, you can print merrily away. On these next few pages are explanations of the various printing options you have. You may see different print dialog boxes depending on which printer you are connected to, and the dialog boxes within different applications may look slightly different from what you see here, but basically all you need to do is answer the questions they ask.

Click the "Copies & Pages" menu to see your list of options. The most common of these are explained on the following pages.

Application-specific options

Most applications have a special menu option for specifications particular to that application. For instance, you see below the options for printing from Keynote, Apple's slideshow application, a product much superior to PowerPoint.

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Copies & Pages

Very often you will not need to go beyond this first dialog box, where you can choose how many copies to print and which pages to print.

Copies:
Type in the number of copies you want to print.

To see what your document will look like when printed on the page, click "Preview." When you do that, you'll be in the Preview application; to continue printing, go back to your document (click the application icon in the Dock), or click the Print button in Preview.

Collated:
If you're printing more than one copy of a multi-page document, you can make the printer collate the copiesit will print all the pages of one set, then print the next set. If you don't click collate, you will get, for instance, five copies of page 1, five copies of page 2, five copies of page 3, etc. Keep in mind that it takes a bit longer for the printer to collate than to print multiple copies of one page at a time.

Pages: All or From __ to __:
You can choose to print all of the pages contained in your document, or just pages 3 through 12 (or what-ever your choice is, of course).

If you want to print just page 3, for example, type 3 in both boxes.

If you don't know the number of the last page, enter something like "999" and the printer will print to the end.

Choose All to override any numbers in the From/to boxes.

In this dialog box, you cannot print non-consecutive pages, such as pages 3, 7, and 11. If you use a page layout or other more sophisticated application, you will have the option to print non-consecutive pages.

Layout

Choose Layout when you want to print multiple pages on one sheet of paper. This is handy when you have, for instance, a presentation to give and you want to create handouts for your audience or students so they can follow along. Or it can help you see your overall project at a glance so you can get a better idea of how things are working together (or not).

In this example, I have chosen six pages per sheet, a layout direction of left to right, and a single hairline border around each individual miniature page.

Pages per Sheet:
Choose how many pages of your document you want to see on each printed sheet of paper. Every page will be reduced to fit, of course.

Layout Direction:
Click on a layout to determine how the pages are arranged on the sheet. As you click each button, the display on the left will show you how your pages will be arranged. In the example above, the first button is clicked.

Border:
Choose one of the four border options so each page will be clearly defined on the printed sheet. The display pane will give you an idea of what to expect with each border option as you choose it.

You can only print two-sided (automatically) if you have bought a two-sided printer and installed its software. As you can see above, the option will be grayed-out if your printer is not capable.

Print Settings

The dialog boxes below only appear in color printers. In color inkjet printers, the type of paper that you specify and put in the printer makes a remarkable difference in the finished image. A low-quality mode with cheap paper makes an image look worse than in the newspaper comic strip. But photo-quality paper with a high-quality mode can make the same image look like a photograph you had enlarged at a photo studio. Use the Print Settings to specify the paper ("Media Type") you have ready in the printer, plus the quality of your finished product.

Your "Print Settings" might not look exactly like the ones shown. Read the manual for your particular printer to learn all the details about every option.

Some of the options will change as you choose different paper to print on and different quality.

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Tips for printing photographs

Use "photo quality" paper.

Choose that paper in the "Media Type" or "Paper Type" menu.

Choose the highest quality.