FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

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Shemja
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Joined: January 19th, 2011, 11:35 am

FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by Shemja »

Anyone have any idea why my FF 104.0.2 on Mac OS 12.15.1 prints every web page or shipping label huge? I have to downsize to 55-60% to get text a normal size. It didn't seem to be an issue on my MacBook Pro running Big Sur, just when I moved to my Mac Mini on Monterey. It's driving me nuts, and I can't find any setting to address it.
Last edited by DanRaisch on September 13th, 2022, 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: (Mac) added to Subject line.
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DanRaisch
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by DanRaisch »

Check under File->Print->Scale. May sure that it's set to 100%.
Shemja
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by Shemja »

DanRaisch wrote:Check under File->Print->Scale. May sure that it's set to 100%.
If I set it to 100% it is enormous.
Shemja
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by Shemja »

I thought maybe my zoom preference in general settings might have had an effect because I have FF set to zoom all pages to 120%, but I put it down to 100% and restarted and FF is still wanting to print pages enormous at 100%.

I have Vivaldi and Safari. Both print normally. Only FF is doing this.
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jscher2000
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by jscher2000 »

Is the label in a PDF? Firefox 103-104 for Mac has a bug with PDFs that contain embedded images or which consist of one huge image. The image is not scaled correctly, so this happens:

* Embedded images: the image is enlarged within its original boundaries and much of it gets lost
* Entire PDF is an image: the image flows off the page regardless of what kind of scaling you try

There is a bug on file for this, and hopefully there will be a fix in Firefox 105.

For now, I'm not aware of any workaround to make it work in Firefox. You can open the PDFs in Preview or Acrobat for printing. Here's how to do it on a one-by-one basis:

* For PDFs that show an https:// address, use the download button on the viewer toolbar to save it.
* For PDFs that show a file:/// address, click the Downloads button on the toolbar, right-click (Ctrl+click) the item, and open in Preview/Acrobat/System Viewer (the display may vary).

If this is a frequent problem, you can change the way Firefox handles PDFs by default to either ask how you want to open the PDF or just automatically open it in Preview or Acrobat. This support article has the details: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/view-pdf ... er-viewer
Shemja
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by Shemja »

Good to know the PDF printing problem is known. It definitely happens with them and files like shipping labels, such as return labels from Amazon.

I did try printing PDFs to preview first. It will preview correctly and then still print huge. I've done what you suggested when it's an option, saving the PDF and printing from Reader, but it doesn't help the problem printing normal web pages.

Yes, normal web pages are printing huge too, and it happens if I print a whole page or selected portions. That's where I'm really struggling because there isn't a print alternative like there is with PDFs.

I'd report this to Bugzilla but that's too technically advanced for me to do.
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jscher2000
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by jscher2000 »

For normal web pages, could you check for and clear the following setting:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box on the page, type or paste print_resolution and pause while the list is filtered

Firefox may list a .print_resolution preference for each of your printers.

(3) For the printer that has a problem, click the trash can symbol at the right end of its .print_resolution row to delete that value.

(4) In the search box on the page, type or paste print_scaling and pause while the list is filtered

Firefox should list a .print_scaling preference for each of your printers.

(5) For any printer that doesn't have the value 1, double-click that preference to display to display an editing field, and change the value to 1 then press Return or click the blue check mark button to save the change.

(6) In the search box on the page, type or paste print_shrink_to_fit and pause while the list is filtered

Firefox should list a .print_shrink_to_fit for each of your printers.

(5) For any printer that doesn't have the value true, double-click that preference to toggle the value from false to true.

That should pretty much reset the scaling. Try again?
Shemja
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by Shemja »

I'm on a Mac, so I don't know if that makes a difference with the instructions you gave me, but there was nothing listed for print_resolution. Scaling was already set to 1 and I changed shrink_to_fit from false to true.

This did not fit the problem, but the instructions prompted me to go back to FF preferences. I scrolled down to zoom to see if changing it now would make a difference and I noticed Fonts above it was set to 14. I left the zoom alone and set the font back to 12 and tested.

All fixed. So my problem for web pages was that my font preference was set too large and FF was using that setting for the default text printing size. I'd been there before and totally missed the font setting those times, but somehow something you said made a difference.

Thanks for your help. Problem solved.
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Re: FF printing webpages huge (Mac)

Post by jscher2000 »

I wouldn't have thought that the font size could override shrink-to-fit. Strange!
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