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Firefox 3.6.13 upgrade prints only a small section of a web page on each printed page

  • 5 replies
  • 10 have this problem
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  • Last reply by dculp

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Firefox prints as though the left, right, and bottom margins are very large, so that printing occurs in a small rectangle (1" wide x 3" high) centered toward the top of the page. The print preview shows the same small rectangle of text except that it is located at the left of the screen instead of centered. The result is that many paper pages are printed for each web page (e.g., 15 pages to print http://meyerweb.com/eric/articles/webrev/200001/example3.html whereas IE8 prints this in 2 pages). This occurs for all web pages that I have tried to print and is not isolated to a particular web site.

In the print setup, all margins are set to 0.5". I have tried resetting these but it didn't help.

Firefox prints as though the left, right, and bottom margins are very large, so that printing occurs in a small rectangle (1" wide x 3" high) centered toward the top of the page. The print preview shows the same small rectangle of text except that it is located at the left of the screen instead of centered. The result is that many paper pages are printed for each web page (e.g., 15 pages to print http://meyerweb.com/eric/articles/webrev/200001/example3.html whereas IE8 prints this in 2 pages). This occurs for all web pages that I have tried to print and is not isolated to a particular web site. In the print setup, all margins are set to 0.5". I have tried resetting these but it didn't help.

All Replies (5)

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Did you check the paper size in File > Page Setup ?

See also http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problems_printing_web_pages

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The printer is a Brother HL-1440 laser. Using the Brother's current driver for this printer, the printing problem occurs. However, if I use a generic driver (for a HP Laserjet 4) then the problem is resolved. Note:

1. Either driver works fine for IE8. 2. This problem only started after upgrading to Firefox 3.6.13. However, I don't know what the previous version was. 3. Even if I set the Laserjet 4 as the default printer, Firefox print preview shows the same small rectangle of text, even though the Laserjet 4 driver prints correctly. See the attached print-preview image, which is also what is printed. 15 of these pages are required to print the full web page. 4. The problem occurs with both A4 and letter size paper selected. 5. When the problem occurs, the printed text size is approximately normal.

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Please read the support page that both cor-el and I posted. Your line of thinking about this problem isn't going to fix the problem, you need to check the Paper Size that is selected for that printer through Firefox using the Properties button, in the dialog window that appears from either {Ctrl + P} or File > Print.

Firefox saves setting for each printer separate from setting for any other printer you may have installed, and separate from "default" printer settings in Windows.

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When I do Ctrl+P from within Firefox and then select Properties for the HL-1440 printer driver, the paper size is A4 which gives the printing problem. Changing the paper size to Letter from within Firefox still gives the same problem.

Correction from previous post: Before printing with the LaserJet 4 printer driver (while the HL-1440 driver is still the default), the print-preview shows the small rectangle of text (see the image of my previous post). However, once I print using the LaserJet 4 driver (which prints correctly) then any subsequent print-preview while using the LaserJet 4 driver correctly displays the page (full width and height). Hence, there seems to be some conflict between this version of Firefox and the factory HL-1440 driver.

Note: All printing is done to the same physical printer (Brother HL-1440). In all cases the printer properties are set to Portrait and Shrink-to-fit.