The Mac OS X printing system’s user interface provides a consistent, easy-to-use environment for performing printing-related tasks such as locating local and networked printers, configuring new printers, choosing printers, and managing print jobs.
The printing system’s user interface consists of the following components:
Page Setup dialog. Allows the user to specify the format of the document to be printed.
Print dialog. Allows the user to specify the parameters of a print job and to print a document on a specified printer.
Simplified Print Dialog. Frees the user from the need to specify the parameters of a print job by providing the user with a set of printing presets.
Print Center. Allows the user to locate, select, and configure available printers, and to determine the status of print jobs associated with each printer.
The printing system’s user interface includes a number of important improvements in both ease-of-use and stability relative to the Mac OS 8 and 9 printing model. The Mac OS 8 and 9 Chooser is replaced in Mac OS X by Print Center, which combines many of the features of the Chooser and desktop printing into a single, integrated interface. Print Center is an application separate from the Finder, which eliminates the need for the Finder to support the printing interface and improves system stability. Mac OS 8 and 9 desktop printers are eliminated; users now organize their printer selections in lists. The Page Setup and Print dialogs are standardized for all printers and are easily extensible to allow for third-party customization.
The Page Setup dialog appears when the user chooses Page Setup from the File menu. The printing system provides a standard Page Setup dialog for all printers, but application developers can customize the dialog by writing a printing dialog extension. (See Extending Printing Dialogs for information on creating a custom dialog.) The standard Page Setup dialog in Mac OS X has two panes—Page Attributes and Summary. Figure 1-1 shows the Page Attributes pane and Figure 1-3 shows the Summary pane.
The Page Attributes pane displays page format options—paper size, paper orientation, and scaling. The printing system uses these settings to calculate the imageable area to which the application can draw a page. The available paper sizes are determined by the printer that’s selected in the “Format for” pop-up menu.
The “Format for” pop-up menu (shown in Figure 1-2) specifies the formatting printer. The formatting printer supplies the paper sizes from which the user can choose and provides the printing system with the page rectangle associated with each paper size.
It’s important to keep in mind that the formatting printer does not specify the destination printer—that is, the printer to which the document is printed. The destination printer is specified in the Print dialog, which by default is the default printer in Print Center. The user can change the destination printer in the Print dialog, but changing the formatting printer in the Page Setup dialog does not change the destination printer.
The default formatting printer is Any Printer—a generic printer. The “Format for” pop-up menu also includes the names of all printers the user has added to Print Center. (You’ll find out more about adding printers in “Print Center.”) Figure 1-2 shows two specific printers named Kangaroo and Wallaby in addition to the generic Any Printer.
The default formatting printer, Any Printer, provides standard paper sizes with margins set to ensure that the imageable area for each paper size is well within the area to which most printers can print. Any Printer is the best choice as the formatting printer for a document that may be printed to different printers.
A specific printer should be chosen as the formatting printer only when the document must use the imageable area defined by a specific printer or to select sheet sizes that are not available for the default Any Printer. For example, choosing a specific printer is necessary when a document must be printed to a printer that prints to the edge of a sheet or to a custom paper size.
If the user changes the formatting printer, the printing system attempts to match the paper size shown in the Paper Size menu to a paper size provided by the newly chosen formatting printer using these rules:
The printing system looks for a matching paper size. For example, if US Letter is shown in the pop-up menu, the printing system looks for paper sizes of 8.5 by 11 inches.
If there is more than one matching paper size, the printing system chooses the matching paper size whose page rectangle matches most closely.
If there are no matching paper sizes, the printing system adds the current paper size to the Paper Size pop-up menu as an item named Other.
The Summary pane of the Page Setup dialog (shown in Figure 1-3) provides a textual list of all of the currently selected page setup options. For example, the Summary pane in the Figure 1-3 shows information for US Letter paper with dimensions 8.5 by 11 inches, portrait orientation, and 100% scaling. The pane also shows the margins that enclose the imageable area—that part of the image the printer can draw without the image being clipped.
The Print dialog appears when the user chooses Print from the File menu. The Print dialog has several Apple-provided panes and can be extended to allow for third-party customization. The number of panes the user sees in the Print dialog and the specific information in each pane vary depending on the specific printer model, whether the printer supports PostScript, and whether there is any developer customization of the Print dialog. The panes can be categorized as follows:
Panes for standard printing features. Apple provides five panes that are available for all printers in Mac OS X—Copies & Pages, Layout, Output Options, Duplex (only for printers with this feature), and Summary. These panes display the features available for any print job and are independent of the application and printer driver.
Panes for PostScript printers. Apple’s PostScript printer driver provides three panes for PostScript printers—Paper Feed, Error Handling, and Printer Features.
Custom panes. Application and printer module developers can create custom panes for the Print dialog by writing a printing dialog extension.
The Print dialog has a number of items that are always available regardless of which pane is displayed. These items are called out in Figure 1-4. At the top of the dialog is the Printer pop-up menu. When the user first opens the Print dialog, the pop-up menu shows the default printer—the printer currently selected in Print Center. The Printer pop-up menu contains a list of all printers that have been added to Print Center. When the user chooses to print a document, the printer selected in the Printer pop-up menu is the destination printer.
The Presets pop-up menu may contain standard, printer-supplied, or user-defined presets. Presets specify a collection of settings in the various panes of the Print dialog.
The pane pop-up menu is set to Copies & Pages in Figure 1-4. This menu allows users to navigate from one pane to another in the Print dialog.
The four buttons at the bottom of the Print dialog—?, Preview, Cancel, and Print—also appear regardless of which pane is open. If the user clicks ?, the Help Viewer application opens to a printing help page in Mac Help. If the user clicks Preview, the printing system creates a PDF document of the print job and displays the PDF document. If the user clicks Cancel, changes made to the pane are ignored and the Print dialog closes. If the user clicks Print, the print job is sent to the destination printer. For the dialog shown in Figure 1-4, the destination printer is Kangaroo.
The rest of this section describes the Apple-provided panes. For information on writing custom panes see Extending Printing Dialogs.
In Mac OS X, Apple provides the following panes for all printers. Each is described in this section.
Copies & Pages
Layout
Output Options
Duplex
Summary
The Copies & Pages pane, shown in Figure 1-4, lets the user set the number of copies and the range of pages to be printed. Users can specify whether copies should be collated.
The Layout pane shown in Figure 1-5 provides settings for the number of pages per sheet and the type of border on a page. For multiple pages per sheet, the user can also specify the layout direction—left to right then top to bottom, top to bottom then left to right, and so forth.
The Output Options pane, shown in Figure 1-6, is available for any printer and provides the option to save a print job as a PDF file or a PostScript file instead of sending it to a printer. The PostScript option is available only in Mac OS X version 10.1 and later, and only if the destination printer is a PostScript printer.
The Duplex pane, shown in Figure 1-7, is available only for printers that provide the option to print on both sides of a sheet. If duplex is available, users can specify a binding option. Binding determines whether the image on the second side of a sheet is flipped.
The Summary pane in the Print dialog, shown in Figure 1-8, displays a list of the currently selected printing options along with information that could be useful for troubleshooting.
In Mac OS X, Apple provides the following panes for PostScript printers. Each is described in this section.
Paper Feed
Error Handling
Printer Features
The printing system uses information from the PostScript printer description (PPD) file to populate many of the PostScript-specific features in these panes. (See Using PostScript Printer Description Files for more information on PPD files.)
The Paper Feed pane is shown in Figure 1-9. Users who choose to print all pages from the same paper tray can either choose a specific paper tray or choose Auto Select. If the user chooses Auto Select, the printer selects a paper tray to match the paper size. Alternately, users can choose to print the first page from one paper tray and the remainder of the pages from another. For example, the user may want to print the first page on cover stock that’s loaded in one tray and the remaining pages on standard paper that’s loaded in a different tray.
The Error Handling pane, shown in Figure 1-10, lets the user specify the actions to take when certain errors occur. One setting determines how PostScript errors are handled and the other specifies to which tray to switch when the selected paper tray is empty.
The Printer Features pane contains any user interface feature specified in a PostScript printer description (PPD) file that isn’t a feature in the standard panes described previously or in a custom pane, as long as the feature is defined in the manner specified in Using PostScript Printer Description Files. A sample pane is shown in Figure 1-11.
The Mac OS X printing system constructs the Printer Features pane using a number of rules for organizing and laying out the pane. For example, features are organized within the Printer Features pane under tabs, as shown in Figure 1-11. Tabs are labeled sequentially as Features 1, Features 2, and so forth, unless the PPD file defines the features in groups. Then, the tabs are labeled with the group name. The features in Figure 1-11 are defined in the PPD file in three groups—Barcode, Resolution, and Security. See Using PostScript Printer Description Files for a complete list of the rules used by the printing system to construct the Printer Features pane.
A simplified version of the Print dialog, shown in Figure 1-12, was introduced in Apple’s iPhoto application. The simplified Print dialog reduces the need for users to navigate to different panes in the Print dialog to make settings for paper type, resolution, and so forth. When the user chooses an option in the Presets menu, the print settings associated with that preset are set automatically. If more advanced settings are needed, the user can access the standard Print dialog by clicking the Advanced Options button in the simplified Print dialog.
In addition to choosing presets, users can also use the simplified Print dialog to choose a printer and set the number of copies. The Style pop-up menu and settings shown in Figure 1-13 are application-specific. The Style choices provided by the iPhoto application determine the layout and orientation of images. The Style settings below the Style pop-up menu change depending on the menu item chosen by the user. The Style box in Figure 1-13 shows sizes for standard prints because the Standard Prints option is selected in the Style pop-up menu.
The Presets menu in Figure 1-14 shows some common options for printing photographs. Options in the Presets menu are populated from entries in a printing presets file provided for a specific printer module. Apple supplies presets files for a number of printer modules. Developers can supply printing presets files for their printer modules even if Apple has already provided presets files for them. A developer-supplied presets file takes precedence over an Apple-supplied presets file for the same printer. Creating Printing Presets for iPhoto provides printer vendors with details on creating and installing a presets file for a printer module.
Print Center is an application that allows the user to locate and select printers, as well as control and obtain status for print jobs. It is the main user interface for printing once the application completes its drawing process for the job. This section discusses Print Center in detail and covers the following topics:
opening Print Center
adding printers to Print Center
managing print jobs
viewing printing status
The Print Center application icon appears in the Dock. (The application is located in /Applications/Utilities/.) Although users may open Print Center from the Dock, they can also open Print Center by choosing Edit Printer List from the Printer pop-up menu in the Print dialog. When the user opens Print Center, the Printer List dialog shown in Figure 1-15 appears. Users can click Add Printer if they want to use a printer other than those listed in the Printer List dialog.
A gray button to the left of a printer name indicates that the printer is the default printer. In Figure 1-15 Kangaroo is the default printer. A user can change the default printer by clicking a printer name, then choosing Make Default from the Printers menu.
Clicking Add Printer in the Printer List window opens the sheet shown in Figure 1-16. To add a printer, the user must first choose a connection type—AppleTalk, LPR, USB, and so forth. When the user chooses a connection type other than LPR, Print Center displays a list of available printers for the connection type.
When the user double-clicks a printer to add it to the list of printers, Print Center gets the selected printer address, icon, and printer model information from the printer browser module. Print Center then uses this information to create a new printer queue and add the printer to the list.
To add an LPR printer that uses IP, the user must enter the printer’s DNS host name or IP address and should select the appropriate model from the Printer Model pop-up menu. The user can optionally provide a queue name for an LPR printer.
The Generic printer model shown in the pop-up menu in Figure 1-16 is the default choice for LPR printers. It’s best for users to choose a specific printer model from the menu rather than Generic because printer-specific features are not available in the Print dialog when Generic is selected.
Unlike LPR printers, which have a unidirectional interface, AppleTalk and USB printers can respond to queries from the printing system. For AppleTalk and USB printers, users can choose Auto Select from the Printer Model pop-up menu. Auto Select causes the printing system to query the printer for its model information. The printing system uses the model information to find a matching PostScript printer description file for the appropriate localization. This ensures that printer-specific features are available in the Print dialog.
A user can look at and manipulate the print jobs for a printer by opening Print Center and double-clicking the printer name in the Printer List window. A window that lists the jobs assigned to the printer opens, similar to what’s shown in Figure 1-17. A user can hold or delete a job or resume a job that’s currently on hold, as long as it’s a job created by the user. The printer’s queue can be stopped temporarily by choosing Stop Queue from the Queue menu. Note that this stops printing only from the printer queue created on the user’s computer.
When an application prints, the printing system creates a print job and sends it to a printer queue. When the print job reaches the queue, the Print Center icon appears in the Dock. The Print Center icon animates to show status and error information. Figure 1-18 shows two states of the Print Center icon. The icon on the left displays the number of the page that is currently being printed. The icon on the right indicates an error. The user can click the Print Center icon to obtain more information about the error or the status of a print job.
Last updated: 2006-02-07
