ubuntu/gnome printing system is not able to print on more than 1 page in some cases

[Sylvain BERTRAND]

Some websites using particular layout techniques do not print or print-preview correctly in gecko-based browsers (firefox, epiphany, etc), causing an incomplete print if the site cannot fit on a single page.

Typically, a header is printed on one page, and a single page of content on a second page, and nothing further.

The technique in question is the use of css's "overflow: none" + inline-frames (iframe).

[Sujay-formerly-netscape (sujay-formerly-netscape)]

okay the problem here is that the user is trying to print a frame page
and chosing "As Laid out on the screen" . This results in just
one page coming out. This is by design.

The workaround is to select "Each frame separately" in the print
options. This will let you print out all the pages.

changing summary.

we do need to address this because in this case the user is using
a web based email service and expects to get all the pages printed
out when printing email.

[Sujay-formerly-netscape (sujay-formerly-netscape)]

also you can reproduce this problem by going to any site that has
frames like http://www.news.com

[Sujay-formerly-netscape (sujay-formerly-netscape)]

*** Bug 105091 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Jonadab (jonadab)]

I would have expected "As Laid Out on Screen" to either
do the equivalent of a screenshot (i.e., truncate where
the screen stops) or not truncate the bottom frames at
all, i.e., if the frame on the left is out of content,
continue printing successive pages of the frame on the
right; top frames, it would seem, should be truncated
in the way they are on the screen. What it currently
does is truncate near the bottom of the first piece of
physical paper, substantially below the bottom of what
shows on the screen, so that it is not at all clear
to the user that the page is being printed as shown
on the screen.

In any case, I did not _notice_ the "As Laid Out on
Screen" option and its various alternatives, and most
of the people who print websites are a good deal less
astute than I in terms of noticing things in dialog
boxes. Patrons at the library where I work are
complaining about this regularly, and while I know
what to tell them now, I should also note here what
they usually tell me: "It only printed the first
page. I told it to print page 2, and it came out
blank." I don't think printing only the first page
should be the default, and I certainly don't think
telling it to print from page 2 to 2 should result
in a blank page when the document is clearly longer
than one page. This gives the user the impression
that the second page is unable to be printed.

[Jonadab (jonadab)]

Also note that Print Range was set to All. I could understand
if the default were to have the Print Range set from 1 to 1,
but with the Print Range set to All, it really should print
successive pages.

Adding self to Cc list.

[Jonadab (jonadab)]

Should this be marked 4xp?

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

Should this be marked 4xp?

No, 4.x does not have the capability to print "As laid out on screen"

[Jonadab (jonadab)]

That was, more or less, my point.

Remind me why anyone would *want* the "capability to print as
laid out on screen" if it truncates after one page. Is there any
conceivable use for this new feature, as it currently stands?
That it is the default seems totally wrong. Printing only page
one when the user selects "All" for the print range, or printing
a blank page when the user selects "From 2 to 2" for the print
range, is *not* the behavior exhibited by 4.x, nor is it the
behavior any user would normally be expected to desire. i.e.,
it is a bug (or a misfeature), and it is a bug (or misfeature)
that 4.x does not have.

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

Reassigning to Rod.

[Fezboy (fezboy)]

Same problem with 11.01 build under Win2K - adding myself to cc:

[Rods (rods)]

We actually reflow "into" the page dimensions. So that is why the screen and
the page differs. I think there is a lot of bbenefit to print the first page
and I agree it is a little misleading that it doesn't print the second page.

We are working on being able to print the second page of a frameset document.

[Rods (rods)]

Just confirming.... It appears that IE prints just one page also.

[Rods (rods)]

Here is another nice URL to test with:
http://www.postoletto.com/citta/milano/mi_of.htm

[Rods (rods)]

I can't find a site where IE will print the second page when printing FrameSets
"AsIs" (Win IE 6.0)

[Jonadab (jonadab)]

> I think there is a lot of benefit to print the first page

Sure, sometimes people want to print (only) the first page.
The traditional way to do this is to set the print range
from page 1 to page 1. This is a little klunky, needing to
specify two numbers (well, one number twice) for just one
page, but a lot of people are used to it now.

At the least, "As laid out on screen" should indicate in
some way that it will only print the first page, if that's
what it's going to do. Particularly since the user has
not infrequently scrolled down one or more of the frames
before hitting print.

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

Opera 5 also prints a single truncated page when printing "As Is". Note: To get
Opera to print "As Is" you must go to "print preview mode" first and set it to
"As Is" before printing.

printing http://www.postoletto.com/citta/milano/mi_of.htm Opera "As Is" results
in a single truncated page with the contents of the left frame shrunk to a very
small size.

[Fezboy (fezboy)]

It may be all well and good that IE and Opera exhibit similar behavior to what
happens with this "feature", but on some level, isn't this supposed to be about
building a better browser? I think the point the Unsightly One is making is
that, regardless of how other current browsers behave, isn't it most intuitive
for the default printing action of a browser when confronted with a page laid
out in frames to just go ahead and print out the whole page, including every
frame? If someone wants to print specific frames or what amounts to a
screenshot, have them be the ones who have to go digging in the print options.

[Rods (rods)]

It's a problem that needs to be solved, it just drops in priority, that's all.
Printing a second page is now a new feature, not an out right regression or bug.
It's still on the list, just lower on the list.

[Jonadab (jonadab)]

> It's a problem that needs to be solved, it just drops in priority

Okay, this I can understand. Printing web pages is in general
something that many browser users don't need, I think, so it
is reasonable that things like this cannot have the same priority
as (e.g.) a layout bug that has an impact for most everyone.
And the existence of a workaround lowers the priority further,
I can understand that too.

I just didn't want to see this brushed off entirely, because it
is a significant issue for some people -- particularly people
who don't have internet access at home and so print things in
order to take them home.

Sorry if I came across as harsh. I just didn't want to see
this marked WONTFIX or something like that. A lower priority
than some other things, that I can accept.

[Sujay-formerly-netscape (sujay-formerly-netscape)]

*** Bug 109198 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Sujay-formerly-netscape (sujay-formerly-netscape)]

*** Bug 110279 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Sujay-formerly-netscape (sujay-formerly-netscape)]

transfering keywords from marek's DUPd bug

[Christinehoff4 (christinehoff4)]

Tested using 11_14_22_0.9.4ec build on Win2000. Reproduced on 0.9.4 branch build

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

Note: IE 6 prints only a single truncated page, the same as Mozilla.

To fix this we would need a new mechanism for re-rendering the same page and
it's associated display frames multiple times with a new offset. The current
printing mechanism reflows page elements between pages, creating new frames if
necessary so a particular frame is only rendered once.

[Dunn5557 (dunn5557)]

edt094- (minus) per Kevin's email comments:
Kevin McCluskey wrote:
valeski, marek and I agreed not be placed on the branch because it would require
significant work and it is an enhancement over what both I.E and Opera do for
"print AsIs". Currently IE., Opera, and Mozilla do the same thing, which is to
print a single page.

[Runyonkj (runyonkj)]

FYI - Try www.warnerchappell.com. IE 6.0 printed the full site content (2
pages), but mozilla will only print the first page.

[Runyonkj (runyonkj)]

Sorry, I should mention that www.warnerchappell.com example (IE vs mozilla) is
on the 0.9.4 branch.

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

printing www.warnerchappell.com Using WINXP with default IE install I only get
(one) page when I set the print options to "As laid out on screen". The default
for IE is to print "All frames individually" which does print out 2 pages. The
default for Mozilla is to print "As is" which is equivalent to IE's "As laid out
on screen". If Mozilla is set to print "Each frame separately" it prints two pages.

The default for IE and Mozilla is not the same.

Maybe Mozilla's default should match IE's to avoid confusion.

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

Changing the default to match IE was split off as bug 112665

[Rods (rods)]

Eventually "AsIs" will print more than one page but for now that is lower
priority, moving to future for now.

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

I don't think this one should be topembed:

The original bug was filed because the default for IE (print all frames) was
different than Mozilla (Print "As Is" (screenshot)) This was fixed by the
checkin for bug 112665, so the user experience is the same for both I.E and
Mozilla which is to print all frames.

It would require significant work and it is an enhancement over what both I.E
and Opera do for "print AsIs". Currently IE., Opera, and Mozilla do the same
thing, which is to print a single page.

[Jonadab (jonadab)]

Nit: Also, it makes no sense for this to be both topembed
      and PC/Win98. One of those (at least) is wrong.
      Actually, I suspect this should be All/All whether
      it is topembed or not.

[Kmcclusk (kmcclusk)]

Marking topembed-

[Mozilla-kaply (mozilla-kaply)]

I would accept what you are saying except for the fact that:

http://www.kaply.com/work/td/START.HTM

Prints out "as is" missing the top frame, and the footer says page 1 of 2 but
only 1 page gets printed.

So if it is working as designed, it is still broke in other ways.

[Mozilla-kaply (mozilla-kaply)]

*** Bug 132881 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Btechman2002 (btechman2002)]

This event has been happening with MY version of Mozilla, printing the first
page ONLY of a multi-page Web Page when the Print Range is set to "all". Here
is My Version:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616

and it also has been printing blank pages when I have Selected Text and has the
print range to "Selection". However, I have a Tempoary work-around:
1.) Go to Print Preview
2.) click "Print"
3.) Select the Print Range to "Pages 1 to x" where x is the last page number.
Click "Print.

[Sylvain BERTRAND (sylvain-bertrand)]

Binary package hint: mozilla-firefox

I was not able to print a long web page, since it prints only the first one.
It does also affect the print preview, which tries to fit the whole web page on one printer page.

[David Farning (dfarning)]

Thanks for your issue report.

I am unable to reproduce this issue. Do you have an example url?

Thanks
David

[Sylvain BERTRAND (sylvain-bertrand)]

Me neither.
Seems to be fixed.

[David Farning (dfarning)]

The orginal reporter is unable to reproduce.

[Chelmite (steve-kelem)]

(In reply to comment #19)
> > It's a problem that needs to be solved, it just drops in priority
>
> Okay, this I can understand. Printing web pages is in general
> something that many browser users don't need, I think, so it
> is reasonable that things like this cannot have the same priority
> as (e.g.) a layout bug that has an impact for most everyone.
> And the existence of a workaround lowers the priority further,
> I can understand that too.
>
> I just didn't want to see this brushed off entirely, because it
> is a significant issue for some people -- particularly people
> who don't have internet access at home and so print things in
> order to take them home.

How can you say it's something that's not needed??? We are always printing drafts for review and markup, for printing my kids' homework assignments and signup forms and medical forms, etc. It's not "needed". It's ESSENTIAL!

[Chelmite (steve-kelem)]

The print going off the page and printing only the first page when "print all" is specified happens on non-frame pages too, e.g., http://www.consumersearch.com/www/family/electric-toothbrushes/review.html
When I try to print, the layout really leaves a lot to be desired:
1. There is a header with something on the left that's overprinted with content from the page.
2. The right side of the header has "http://www.consumersearch.com/www/fam..." literally. It's close to useless to try to find the url from which the page was printed. I have to take the time to write the url on the page with a pen. (For which my wife files a bug against my handwriting abilities.)
3. There is a footer that says "1 of 1", even though I told it to "print all pages".
4. The content goes into and past the footer instead of stopping above the footer and continuing on subsequent pages.
5. The rest of the content is not printed!

P.S. I'm using Firefox 2.0 on SuSE Linux 10.0.

[Oliv-oliv (oliv-oliv)]

I've got the same probs with a page without frames...

my page is with divs construct but have a large table within, and when the table is longer than the page, when I print, just the first page goes out...

I've tested it on Firefox 2.0 on PC and Mac...

Problem don't occurs on Safari or IE...

P.S. Think it's a very old problem that need to bo corriged... ;)

[swarna (sangeethath)]

Firefox is not printing tamil language properly and i tried to use the following patch to make it support printing
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357733
But it is not patching

[Loye Young (loyeyoung)]

I am able to reproduce.

I browsed to http://www.ewtn.com/USPapalVisit08/words/Nationals.asp. I clicked on File > Print, selected the printer and clicked on the Print button. Only one page printed. I looked at Print Preview, which showed only one page, with the text running down off the page, cutting off the rest.

When I copy and paste into OpenOffice, I can print correctly.

[Vittorio Beggi (vbeggi)]

a page that causes the error can be found here: http://ubuntufacile.blogspot.com/
Common recurrent problems:
- Long lines are often truncated; - tables or "div" completely ingored; - multipage documents only first page printed

Have been looking around in the net, the problem has been reported several times but answers are almost "esotheric". Nobody seems to take care of a really annoying behaviour that makes people complain of having dropped IE.

[FriedChicken (domlyons)]

Also in FF3b5 (Hardy Heron)

More than one page is printed but the text is cut of left and/or right in the examples above.

[Del French (dfrench744-comcast)]

I was only able to get the 1 page to preview.I use a HP deskjet 940C,And tried all available drivers. This Help?

[Rwessleyc (rwessleyc)]

My page is also with divs construction and a large table within, and when the
table is longer than the page, just the first page prints. IE prints all pages.

Using Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Win XP

Header and footer are printed on separate pages, and only one "paper" page is printed of data from the table. (Wachovia online banking site, kind of important for me to print out A L L of my transactions, not just first page)

OH, and the whole "print frames" box is greyed out.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 09:57:08PM -0000, Loye Young wrote:
> ** Changed in: firefox-3.0 (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Confirmed
>

Could you please check if this is fixed in firefox 3 RC1 you can get
that from the hardy-proposed software archives - which you can enable
in Sytem -> Administration -> Software Sources.

 affects ubuntu/firefox-3.0
 status incomplete

ffox 2 reaches EOL soon. Thus this issue wont be fixed there.

 affects ubuntu/firefox
 status wontfix

 - Alexander

[Jan-bielawski (jan-bielawski)]

This must be fixed. The "print first page by default" behavior is completely counter intuitive and annoying. It also affects the preview. For the life of me I cannot understand who would ever want to print just the first page by default! When selecting "Print", a window pops up listing precisely what it's going to do: either "All" or a range or current or whatever. How could this by any more obvious? Firefox overriding this by some unexplained behind-the-scenes-default is just WRONG. I tried printing out the page http://linuxshellaccount.blogspot.com/2008/03/beginning-your-spec-file-for-building.html and when the preview showed me just one page I tried opening the main frame only and found out I couldn't (try it). At that point I downloaded and installed Opera which printed everything perfectly. (I'm not switching to Opera, but if this is any indication, I better keep it for emergencies.)

[Alexis de Lattre (alexis-via)]

The bug is still present in Firefox 3.0 final on an up-to-date Ubuntu 8.04.

The bug is not printer-specific ; I am able to reproduce it with my HP printer, the standard PDF printer and others.

The issue is also present with Epiphany. I haven't found any workaround so far.

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

i can reproduce this, a sample page is attached (including what i get if i try to print a pdf, i have checked on a real hardware printer that prints everything else OK, but the output on my piece of paper is the same cropped thing). happens with a up-to-date firefox 3

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.1) Gecko/2008072820 Firefox/3.0.1

same thing with epiphany (Web Browser 2.22.2 Lets you view web pages and find information on the internet.
Powered by gecko-1.9)

so the thing is probably broken somewhere in gecko

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

ps: i just opened the file with open office and when switching from "web layout" to "print layout" ... you get basically the same bug...

[Thomas Ribbrock (emgaron+ubuntu)]

I can confirm this bug for Kubuntu 8.04.1 and firefox-3.0 (3.0.1+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.3). In all cases, the print preview only shows one page and no matter whether I print to file or to an actual printer, I only get one page.

From what I can see so far, this problem is most likely to occur if the webpage in question uses frames. Two examples:

http://www.marktplaats.nl/
http://www.hyperelliptic.org/tanja/conf/ECC08/

Pages without frames seem to work a lot better for printing.

You *can* work around it sometimes by selecting "Each frame on separate pages" in the Options tab of the print dialogue, but it's still very annoying.

[ghormax (aisuru2001)]

I don't know if my problem is the same. The web site I am trying to print is this one

http://www.gmw.cn/03pindao/guancha/2003-04/030416/030416-16.htm

I get three pages and a lot of text is lost.

The whole document was printed without problems with Seamonkey!

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

so do you see this in other applications than firefox?

[ghormax (aisuru2001)]

I have only compared Firefox 3.0 and SeaMonkey printing. I also think the problem occurs since I have upgraded to the new Ubuntu (8.10) system. Furthermore, Firefox fonts are also not as they should be. I opened another report here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.0/+bug/293122

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

as reported i see it in open office (print layout), too.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

does printing to pdf/file work better? e.g. does the produced document have all pages?

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

this bug is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102641 ... this happens on framed pages.

[Carey Underwood (cwillu)]

In firebug, there's usually a rule "overflow: hide;". Changing that to 'show', or merely deleting the rule, fixes printing. This works in blogger's themes at the very least.

Is there some way to have a printing-only stylesheet with a rule like "overflow: show !important"?

[Carey Underwood (cwillu)]

This suffices to work around the issue, although it may have undesired effects on some layouts (although not on any layouts I've run across so far).

@media print {
  * {
    overflow: visible !important;
  }
}

Placing the above in your profile's chrome/userContent.css file and restarting firefox is an effective way of applying it.

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

(In reply to comment #42)
> In firebug, there's usually a rule "overflow: hide;".

That's bug 129941. Please direct any further "overflow:hidden"-related printing comments there.

> Is there some way to have a printing-only stylesheet with a rule like
> "overflow: show !important"?

Yes, with the "Stylish" extension -- see bug 129941 comment 59. You can probably make it print-only using "@media print" -- see syntax at http://www.w3.org/TR/css-print

[Harry Skelton (skelton-harry)]

Site that it fails on is: www.pnc.com (banking site)

When you try to print the web page, which would cover more than one page in print out, it does not print everything. It only prints one page and then dies.

A work-around would be to print to PDF then print the pdf file - ignoring any print settings. This way you have greater control over the PDF than what Firefox does.

Otherwise, configure firefox to have the option to shrink the entire web page to one page.