How to preview Prints in Firefox

[harlan4096]

Firefox does not display a print preview when you print a webpage in the browser and use the Ctrl-P shortcut to start the process.

No print preview is displayed when you use Ctrl-P to print the active page and the print dialog that opens has no option to display a preview or enable previews for print jobs in Firefox.

Firefox does support previews of prints but it may not be clear to users who use Ctrl-P exclusively to print content. You find the option in the menu bar but since Mozilla made the decision to hide it by default, it is not something that most Firefox users use or are even aware of.

You need to press the Alt-key on the keyboard to display the menu. Select File > Print Preview to display a preview of the printed page to check it out before you print it.

Print Preview unlocks certain options that you don't get when you select Print. You may change the scaling, enable "simplify page" if available, and check out how each printed page would look like; the latter enables you to exclude certain pages from the printout if they are not needed.

There does not seem to be an option to map the Ctrl-P shortcut to Print Preview; all extensions that supported the changing of keyboard shortcuts, e.g. Customizable Shortcuts or Menu Wizard are not available anymore. Keyboard shortcut extensions are still available, but they are fairly limited in comparison to classic extensions.

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