a computer related rant!

[ARTraveler]

Does anyone else have this challenge?

You're in a program, and you hit print. You go stand by the printer, waiting and then go check to see if you're locked up, to find another screen to hit print again. There seem to be some screens where you hit print and the thing prints - no second screen!

Like I said, just a rant!

[stephen_s]

I understand where you're coming from, but I think it was designed that way to be "fail-safe" or "fool-proof".

I think the reason why they did it is based on the following scenario (which is common in most companies):

You have an Adobe Acrobat Reader document (pdf) which has 150 pages. You have three printers. If the program just PRINTS the document when you hit print, you may end up tying up the printer for a long time (if you have a slow dot-matrix, inkjet, or one of the older lasers).

This dialog box allows you to redirect the document to a less-often used printer and to have you print only certain pages.

Some programs (like Microsoft Office) allow you to automatically print the document (with no intermediary window) because it's a macro. The macro language simply states-print all of the pages to the default printer. So if you have a dot-matrix as your default printer, that's where the document is going to go.

As an aside, if you are part of a network, your network admin can assign the documents priorities, which allows him/her to redirect that document to another printer. For example, he can say print the pdf on a high-speed laser, but print the spreadsheet (no graphs) on an inkjet.

[ARTraveler]

Thank you!