Printing Ebay invoice.

Question

Level 1

6 points

Printing Ebay invoice.

I've done this successfully before. I still have the printout from last November. In both cases, I sold some stuff on Ebay and looked at my invoice of Ebay's charges for posting the listings and their cut of the sale price. It's displayed on the computer screen, but I can't get my Mac to print it. When I click on File and then Print, I don't make any changes to the options, so it is supposed to print all pages. But, it only prints one page and that page isn't right. It only prints the left 2/3 or so of the page displayed on the screen. And the important information is on the right side of the displayed page. Then there is the problem of a couple of pages of important information after the first page. It doesn't even try to print those. I contacted Ebay's customer service department, and when I mentioned I had a Mac, they told me that must be my problem and I would have to get a PC. I had a PC once. Don't ever want to do that again. And, like I said, I already printed an invoice with my Mac. Something has changed. Any suggestions?

mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Aug 19, 2008 3:30 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Nick Holmes

Level 7

30,018 points

Aug 19, 2008 4:22 PM in response to oldandslow

Are you trying to print the content diplayed in your web browser?

Try this: first go to "page set up" and make sure you don't have any custom page size set there -choose US letter or A4, whatever suits you best. Click print as usual, then choose save as PDF. You will be able to see what you would have got with a real print out.

if that does not look right, some web pages have a link along the lines of "Show Frames" or "Hide Frames" click it to change to the other setting and try the PDF again.

Failing that, you might try a screenshot -Shift, cmd and 4 will let you draw a rectangle around the area of interest and save it to your desktop. This can then be printed via the Preview application.

Reply

Answer 2

oldandslow Author

Level 1

6 points

Aug 19, 2008 6:34 PM in response to Nick Holmes

Regarding the first question, I guess I am. A web browser is something used to get to the internet, isn't it? Like Safari? I'm trying to print an invoice that is on Ebay which is on the internet and I use Safari to get on the internet. Is there any other way to print an Ebay invoice?
On the 'page set up', it was set for 'US letter'. If I'm on the page to check for 'page set up' and I click 'print', the page disappears, so I won't have a chance to choose 'save as PDF'. However, I did start over and click 'save as PDF' without clicking print first, and saved it to documents, and went to documents and looked at it and it looked just like the page I printed 4 hours ago; the right side was missing. I beleive I could accomplished the same thing by clicking on 'print preview' or the button with a name similar to that, and it is a one step process. I just click the button, and an image of what will be printed appears.
I couldn't find anything like 'Show Frames', and really, there are no frames. In the meat of the invoice, its all relevant information from one side to the other.
The screenshot advice was useful. I didn't know about this feature. I found it difficult to use, though. Sometimes it highlighted gray, and sometimes it highlighted blue and didn't take a screenshot. And I have to carefully position the mouse all the way to the left at the start so it doesn't fall off the pad when I highlight from left to right. Then there is the problem of the screen having its long axis horizontal and the paper having its long axis vertical. The computer is smart enough to shrink the picture so it fits horizontally, but there is alot of empty white paper at the top and bottom. It took 5 sheets to print out the invoice. When I look at the invoice I printed in November, it has all the information plus an extra column that is a running total, and the print is much larger. I didn't have any trouble that I remember last November, so something has changed. I don't know if Apple screwed this up with a program update, or Ebay screwed it up.
In the 4.5 hours I have spent trying to print out this invoice, I could have used a Big Chief tablet and a number 2 pencil to copy all of the information off the screen and had time to double check everything twice. This is not progress! Machines are supposed to make work faster and easier. Mac is failing as badly as PC. This kind of aggravation is why I trashed the PC.

Reply

Answer 3

babowa

Level 9

78,580 points

Aug 19, 2008 6:53 PM in response to oldandslow

"+On the 'page set up', it was set for 'US letter'. If I'm on the page to check for 'page set up' and I click 'print', the page disappears, so I won't have a chance to choose 'save as PDF'. However, I did start over and click 'save as PDF' without clicking print first, and saved it to documents, and went to documents and looked at it and it looked just like the page I printed 4 hours ago; the right side was missing. I beleive I could accomplished the same thing by clicking on 'print preview' or the button with a name similar to that, and it is a one step process. I just click the button, and an image of what will be printed appears.+"

Instead of starting with the "Page set up" page, what you want to do is:
1. File Menu -> click on print
2. At bottom left there is a button "PDF", click, hold, and choose "save as PDF"

I've never had a problem saving web pages including ebay and other invoices, articles, and whatever that way; they show all the content. And, instead of printing out the document, I save it to the desktop, name it appropriately, and then save it to my "ebay", "computer purchases", etc. folders. That way I'm not wasting ink, but still have a record. I even use this with Apple knowledge articles or similar - anything I feel I may need to refer to again.

Reply