print-css size measurements arbitrarily ignored by FF 3

Jakob Bohm

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Jul 8, 2009, 1:39:05 PM7/8/09

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I am trying to create an exact print layout so the physical paper output
matches the size of some actual physical objects. I use
standards-compliant CSS2.x with standards-compliant XHTML 1.x. But
Firefox 3.0.0.x is causing problems by sometimes ignoring the specified
size measurements and scaling the entire output to a completely
different size.

What is going on and how do I control it?

Daniel Holbert

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Jul 8, 2009, 2:37:08 PM7/8/09

to alkwtopos...@jbohm.dk

On 07/08/2009 10:39 AM, Jakob Bohm wrote:
> But
> Firefox 3.0.0.x is causing problems by sometimes ignoring the specified
> size measurements and scaling the entire output to a completely
> different size.

If content is too wide to fit on the printable area of the page, Firefox
will generally auto-shrink it to make it fit.

There should be a checkbox in the print dialog to enable/disable this
behavior. (On Linux, it's in the "Options" tab of the print dialog and
is called "Ignore scaling and shrink to fit page width". I'm not sure
about other platforms) It's checked by default, and it sounds like you
probably want to un-check it.

That's my best guess at why Firefox would be unexpectedly scaling your
printed content... If that doesn't help, it'd be helpful if you could
attach (or link to) a testcase that demonstrates what you're talking about.

~Daniel

Jakob Bohm

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Jul 8, 2009, 3:39:44 PM7/8/09

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Thanks, your answer helped me find the option under "File!Print...".
Due to the usual overzealous UI "simplification", the option is
unavailable and always-on for "File!Print Preview" and is not in the
"Page Setup" dialog where it belongs.

Turns out my contents is just about 5pt to wide for the hardcoded
margins used by FF 3.0.0.x .

Such content-sabotage really should be logged to the error console, so
people don't spend forever double-guessing themselves.

Daniel Holbert

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Jul 8, 2009, 4:03:50 PM7/8/09

to Jakob Bohm

On 07/08/2009 12:39 PM, Jakob Bohm wrote:
> Thanks, your answer helped me find the option under "File!Print...".
> Due to the usual overzealous UI "simplification", the option is
> unavailable and always-on for "File!Print Preview" and is not in the
> "Page Setup" dialog where it belongs.

Not to overly defend Firefox's printing UI, as there's definitely room
for improvement... but, for the record, the option *is* available in
Print Preview, at least on Windows and Linux. Use the "Scale" drop-down
box, near the center of the print preview window's toolbar -- it
defaults to "Shrink To Fit", but you can change that to "100%" if you
want to disable shrinking. (Sadly, that "preview" setting doesn't
necessarily propagate through to the actual printed output when you
click "print" -- you may still need to untick the checkbox in the print
dialog, too.)

If you want to change the default (in both Print and Print Preview) to
make sure you never run into this problem again, you can go to
about:config, search for "print_shrink_to_fit", and double-click all
listed settings to flip them to "false".

~Daniel

Jakob Bohm

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Jul 8, 2009, 4:54:03 PM7/8/09

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Sorry, in my copy of FF 3.0.0.6 for Linux, there are only the following
Print Preview controls: "Page: |<-- <--- [ 1] of 1 ---> -->| Close"

Daniel Holbert

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Jul 8, 2009, 5:16:50 PM7/8/09

to Jakob Bohm

On 07/08/2009 01:54 PM, Jakob Bohm wrote:
> Sorry, in my copy of FF 3.0.0.6 for Linux, there are only the following
> Print Preview controls: "Page: |<-- <--- [ 1] of 1 ---> -->| Close"

Ah, you're right -- the "Scale" dropdown in the Print Preview UI seems
to be new in Firefox 3.5 and later.

~Daniel