hi barney. thanks.
i finally sat down and did my presets.
i have 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 16 documents to a page with a Color and a Black and White version for each. this is 14 presets for a laptop and 14 for a desktop computer (i was never able to get any apply to both computer functionality to work).
so now if i want to do a set of settings for the other items i mentioned i have at a /minimum/ 1. don't rotate and do rotate 2. scale to fit and don't scale to fit 3. best print quality and draft quality 4. 8 x 11 inch 5. 8 x 14 inch etcetera etcetera i will have to do like 50 different presets. plus i also have a second printer with two OTHER paper sizes and this is a different brand of printer so i will have to set up another 14 presets EACH for a desktop and a laptop computer - just to get the second computer to have the same presets i slaved over for the first printer. i mean, it is great to say well i don't need so many presets but they i am going to be spending crazy amounts of time trying to dig through wicked dumb pulldown menus like "Paper Handling" to find something like "Scale to Fit Paper Size" which only an idiot would put in there in the first place (particularly when i already have a percentage scale functionality on the software pulldown that is the default UI tab anyways).
they should just make all these buttons and checkboxes available without pulldowns. it is crazy how they are all strewn about.
***
on the Preview setting i can see why the default is sometimes to print all the documents. BUT i should have an option here and not have to constantly select a radio button to get this functionality. if i open fifty documents to see them in Preview - AND i /actively/ select one of them or five of them or fifteen of them, and then i go to Print - the software should be smart enough to know that this is an active selection that i am printing and it should print what i selected.
this is so sloppy that it compounds every other print job by an additonal radio button each and EVERY time. if i want to print a single image from an open selection of two images i and i want it not to scale to fit and i want it in two to a page, in black and white (to not waste color) and i want a draft (to not waste ink) in horizontal mode (because this image fits best this way) i am going to have to check through like five or six radio buttons and that are strewn across three pulldowns - and i know for a fact that i will be pulling some of them down twice because i couldn't figure out where some of them were. this is totally unnecessary for a one time job.
even worse - if i have fifty pages open instead of two and i get through the print selection options and find all of them correctly and i /forget/ to check the radio button - well then i have just wasted ink on fifty images printed two times each on fifty pages.
seems like the default should be the other way around if you wanted it to be and this would at the very least be the more ecological option...
anyway, seems like i have to drop 2 cents on this print dialog business when i get aggravated enough with it.
i guess instead of complaining it would be good to know if someone has a tutorial out there on customizing these settings in terminal to suit individual users...that way i can put my energy into some "Advanced User Interface Print Settings Customizations"...
: ) thanks as always...
