Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

Mike F. — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:32:11 GMT

So overall I like this Backstage View. It makes it a little easier on my end users to successfully utilize some of the many printer features that we offer. I completely agree, in older versions, users could modify the few settings in the office 2003/2007 printer dialog, otherwise they would have to go into the print driver settings per the application to really configure stuff, and that just becomes too complicated for a general user. This backstage view really allows them to gain full control of the driver, without having to mess around in the many different printer driver pages for all the different printers on the network.

But .... I have run into a few issues where the backstage viewer/printer settings page doesnt seem to work correctly. I am running Word 2010 with a Xerox WorkCentre 5638 (Global Print Driver PS version 5.173.11.0N 2010.06.07). The printer supports staples, and word reflects that option, however if i select it in word, it does not print with staples. After a little troubleshooting, I discovered that if I selected staples within Word, and then opened the printer driver within word afterwards, staples would not be select there. However, if I opened the driver within word and selected staples from the driver, it would then reflect so in word and print correctly with staples. Additionally, if I select staples within the driver, I can then go back to the backstage viewer and successfully modify it from within word from that point on until I close and restart word.

So is this an issue with compatibility of certain drivers? This is the most up to date driver for this printer. Clearly, it does work, but it seems like I need to initate a change from within the driver first before word can successfully modify print settings (but only on some settings).

Any ideas?

Thanks

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

Gedii — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 13:28:58 GMT

That's all great but how do I get the old printer dialogue back!!!

Have you never heard the adage: "If it isn't broke, don't fix it!"

:-)

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

Randy Vogel — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:19:24 GMT

So why doesn't the excel backstage print view show the print preview display? Sure would be nice to be able to use my widescreen to look at 2 pages side by side before printing...

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

Randy Watkins — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:22:16 GMT

@flutefreak: You are spot on. The difference with the old print preview is that it used the actual Windows print driver so you could see the actual pixels of the printout. Particularly useful when printing color on black-and-white printers. That is how you save trees.

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

tunghoy — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:37:08 GMT

@flutefreak7: For reasons unknown to mankind, no version of Excel had a Print Preview that could do more than zoom out to full page or zoom in to about 100%. But Print Preview is no longer necessary in Excel 2007 or 2010.

In the lower-right corner of the screen, to the left of the Zoom slider, click the middle of the 3 buttons. That's Page Layout view, and it works the same way as in Word -- it shows the full, printed (WYSIWYG) sheet of paper, it's fully editable like Normal view, and you can zoom any way you like.

save some MORE trees

BenS — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:45:01 GMT

A couple of suggestions from a sustainability point of view.

- The selection of which pages to print can save a lot of trees. It would be very useful if there is an option that automatically suppresses the printing of (nearly) empty pages. Some research has been done and savings in the order of 10-15% seem possible. Obviously, it's a big cost saver too

- It would further be interesting if there was a button to select the most "green" option to print a job, i.e. double sided (aka duplex), B&W, low-quality and only non-(nearly)-empty pages.

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

loiner — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:40:15 GMT

Overall, I have found this facility much more usable than the older print preview (mainly a Word user).

Is it completely obvious that the document display zoom zooms the /preview/ and not the /printout/ ? (I suppose it is "discoverable" in the sense that if you get it wrong, you will find out as soon as you print, but maybe there is space to clarify it).

Can the document display actually display what is going to be printed - e.g. in Word, when you select that you want to print Document Properties, can the preview display that? (at least optionally)

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

techiebird — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:52:49 GMT

CarlosT, F11 shows the database window, and has done for as long as I can remember. In Access 2007 it shows/hides the navigation pane.

Ironically, it's one of the few UI functions I didn't have to hunt around for the first couple of days after I moved to Access 2007.

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

CarlosT — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:06:54 GMT

@brostbeef: I guess Office 2007 is a time saver for me too in that way, because now I don't answer questions about any part of Office. I guess I win out for as long as I can avoid using 2007.

@Ananda: what would those "pros" be? That's a serious question. What can I do in Access 2007 that I couldn't do in Access 2003? Multivalued fields? As in, non-normalized table design? Yay?

That's been the problem: I haven't found a compelling reason to switch and the pain in the ass user interface greatly increases the cost. So, no added benefit and increased cost, and you see where that ends up.

Everyone here seems to accept that discoverability has been improved in Office 2007, but I have had the exact opposite reaction. I knew where everything I needed was, so it was all perfectly discoverable to me. I got the metaphor. What used to be instant tasks are now bewildering treks through the Ribbon. This is even more true because the keyboard accelerators don't work in the same way. I am very used to typing a three or four letter combination after ALT to get to what I need (e.g. ALT-F-G-I to Import in Access, ALT-T-E-E to get to the envelope dialog in Word, and ALT-E-S-V-ENTER to Paste Special - Values in Excel). It's really fast, much faster than using the menu, and three billion times faster than figuring out where a particular function has been shanghaied to. Office 2007 doesn't smoothly support those key combinations and I have to very slowly tap them out to get them to work correctly, if it even works at all.

As for change, Office 2007 now has a much steeper learning curve than OpenOffice. I guess that's where those of us who actually knew how to use Office 2003 can go.

re: Save Some Time -- Save Some Trees

flutefreak7 — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:31:27 GMT

I feel like the Print Preview has been crippled from its former functionality. Zooming is my key example. When I went to print a complicated Excel document I was unable to zoom in far enough to properly see cell borders and such. There are only 2 levels of zoom... zoomed out and zoomed in. There is a "Zoom" check box, which when unchecked causes the document to zoom in (kinda an un-zoom checkbox if you ask me). Why not provide a zoom control or at least the keyboard functionality like CTRL+Scrollwheel which zooms in every other application.

Another loss of functionality is that I can't make quick edits during print preview. Yes this was a surprising feature in older versions of Office, but it was infinitely useful when you just need to nudge an object into the print range or some similarly mundane task. Getting in and out of the Backstage menu is a royal pain. Typing ESC, or clicking the "Back" tab (or the small image of the document on the Info sub-tab) is unacceptable. Oh and if you try the little X in the upper right, you'll exit the application. The Backstage menu covers up all the other tabs, the entire document, and the status bar. Its not just Application-Modal, it swallows the screen whole, acting like a new window, but doesn't exist on the taskbar or ALT-TAB menu.

The organization of Printer settings is great. Big fat buttons, all the options are right there, looks spiffy. The Print Preview and the Backstage menu in general though seem crippled and I think the average user will be justifiably confounded at why the Print Preview is so small and under-powered, and why the Backstage Menu has swallowed their screen.