New to Mac: How do I print current page

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Level 1

8 points

New to Mac: How do I print current page

Hi there. I have used both Linux (ubuntu) and Microsoft. Both have an option to 'print current page'.

In Pages and in Preview (for the PDF's I download) this option is not available.

I have read another post about this issue and the answer is not to merely type in the page numbers - because in large documents (thesis etc) and in large PDFs (I am a grad student so I read a lot of big reports) there are always a number of pages that start a report or book (i, ii, iii, iv etc etc) so that in fact when you are reading page 178, for example, it may be that this is in reality page 189. Most reports start with roman numerals , etc and then page 1 does not start for a while. I hope this makes sense.

I called the apple support and they told me that the only solution that they had was for me to manually count the number of pages, including the blanks etc , until I got to the one labelled "1", and then subtract that from the total, to get the true number of the page I am trying to print on the screen.

Surely this cannot be correct. I am a new Mac user (less than 1 week) , and so likely I just don't know where to look for this functionality, but it does seem rather intuitive to place it on the print dialogue box with everything else..

Help!!

Macbook 2.4 Ghz 13 inch, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Aug 14, 2008 1:56 PM

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Answer 1

dwb

Level 7

33,196 points

Aug 14, 2008 2:14 PM in response to twokiwi

The print dialog has two modes or views - I'm not sure of their official names but I refer to them as small and large. In small view you'll see the pop-up menu with the printer(s) you can print to, the printer presets, and buttons. You'll also see a triangle, known as the disclosure triangle. Click on it to get the large view. In the large view you have more options including which pages to print. If you look to the left, you'll see a thumbnail of the page you are currently viewing with buttons to move forwards and backwards. Note that between the buttons you'll see something like 4 of 15. That 4 is the number of the page you are looking at, not the page number that will be printed. That is the number to type in if you want to print just that page.

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Answer 2

Aug 14, 2008 2:22 PM in response to twokiwi

twokiwi,

If you are viewing a PDF in Preview, look at the bar at the top of the page. You will see the page that is in view at that time (in the format "page x of y"). Use this number to determine which single page to print, using the print dialogue.

Scott

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Answer 3

dwb

Level 7

33,196 points

Aug 14, 2008 3:42 PM in response to twokiwi

Yeah - I don't know why Apple defaulted to the small dialog. The idea of a disclosure icon is not widely understood, even by long time users. In the early days of Leopard I answered all kinds of questions about "broken print dialogs".

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Answer 4

Aug 14, 2008 7:01 PM in response to twokiwi

twokiwi,

I'm not sure why Apple chose to use just the 2 options in the print dialogue; this is specific only to Apple applications. The print dialogue is customized by the application from which it comes.

For example, MS Word gives 3 choices in the dialogue: "All," "from x to z," and a third "this page." Hmmm.

Scott

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Answer 5

Aug 28, 2008 7:30 AM in response to Scott Radloff

Scott, that doesn't work for long PDF reports in Preview with unnumbered or Roman numeral pages in the beginning. The page number in the toolbar box is the ACTUAL page number in the document, not the page number that will print. I'm in Tiger OS 10.4.11. Maybe that got fixed in Leopard???

I have been reverting to Adobe Reader for printing, though it's a pain switching back and forth. (AR takes up memory, is slow on searching, searches 1 instance at a time, etc. I much prefer Preview save for this glitch!)

The trick in Preview is to scroll to the start of the document and figure out how many pages were unnumbered. I just did this in a document with two cover pages and xxviii amount of intro pages. That one was easy-- just add 30 to the page number. I was looking at page 43, so in the print dialog I picked 73. Worked like a charm.

--------------------------------------------------
One other tip about this. Even when you're in Preview, it's always smart to select Preview in the Print dialog box. That will then send the page you want to print to Preview itself! That way you can tell if it's the right page or not and not waste paper.

Message was edited by: AstroMacMan

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Answer 6

dwb

Level 7

33,196 points

Aug 28, 2008 8:10 AM in response to AstroMacMan

I recently needed to print the 3rd chapter of a book. I opened the sidebar of Preview and selected the pages I wanted to print in the sidebar. (I selected the thumbnails of those pages.) When I clicked on the print button just those pages printed. No one ever showed me I could do it that way, I didn’t even think about it - it just seemed natural - select and print. It worked. I didn't have to say print from page 36 to 51. I didn't have to do anything but select.

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Answer 7

twokiwi Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 28, 2008 8:35 AM in response to dwb

Thx for posting - I'll try that. My only limitation is eyesight - as sometimes the thumbnails are small for my poor vision...I'll play around with your suggestion and see if I can't increase size of thumbnails to ensure that I can see what I select.

Cheers!

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Answer 8

twokiwi Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 14, 2008 2:52 PM in response to Scott Radloff

Thank you - that was helpful for the PDF in Preview.

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Answer 9

twokiwi Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 14, 2008 2:57 PM in response to dwb

Many thanks - as soon as I read 'thumbnails', I realized that I had none (guess the default is for them to be off). I went back to Pages and found the function for that and activated it.

🙂

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Answer 10

twokiwi Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 14, 2008 2:58 PM in response to twokiwi

Thanks to both of you - you each contributed to my solution. Really appreciate it. Can be difficult as a newbie when you just don't know where to look on your own...

Cheers!
🙂

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