Project 1: Word Basics
Printer Settings

 Title: Jan's Illustrated Computer Literacy 101
Did you want: Working with Words: Word 2007,2010,2013,2016 or españolIcon: Change web

There are 3 dialogs that control how your printer prints.

Print: Has controls for choosing which printer to use, what pages to print, how many copies to print, whether to collate the pages.

Printer Properties: Has the controls for that printer's particular features. A color printer will have a way to choose color or black and white only. There may be a choice for photos.

Options | Print: The Print tab on Word's Options dialog has a number options that affect how your Word document will print.

 

 


Where you are:
JegsWorks > Lessons > Word97-2003

Before you start...

Project 1: Word Basics
    InterfaceTo subtopics
    Getting StartedTo subtopics
    FormatTo subtopics
    Images To subtopics
    Pre-PrintTo subtopics
    icon-footprintHeader/Footer
    icon-footprintSpell Check
    icon-footprintPage Setup
    icon-footprintPrint Preview
    icon-footprintPrinter
    Manage Printing
    Summary
    Quiz
    ExercisesTo subtopics

Project 2: Auto ToolsTo subtopics

Project 3: BrochureTo subtopics

Project 4: ReportTo subtopics

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    Glossary

Warning The Print button Print button on the Standard toolbar in Word uses the current settings and starts printing immediately. You do not get the chance to see what those settings are. Instead of using the button, use the Print command on the File menu unless you are VERY sure what Word will do.

Icon Step-by-Step 

Step-by-Step: Printer Settings

  Icon Step-by-Step

What you will learn:

to use the Print dialog
to use the Properties dialog for your printer
to use the Options | Print dialog for Word

Start with:Class disk, Back disk  flyer-World Travel Inc.doc completed

Save

  1. Class disk Save the document. It is a very good idea to save your work before printing. Sometimes computers lockup during the printing process. This would lose your document entirely. Of course, you should be saving it all along as you create it, too!
    Full disk How to handle a full disk

Printer dialog

  1. From the menu choose  File  |  Print...  The Windows Print dialog box appears. You may have more than one printer to choose from, especially if you are on a network. What you will change the most often here is the Page Range. This dialog changes a bit, depending on the application. For some applications you can choose to print just the selected text. In some browsers you can choose to print just a single frame.

    Print dialog

  2. Select the printer at the top from the Name: list.
     
  3. Select All under Page Range and 1 copy.
     
  4. Click on the Properties button at the upper right to see the settings for the particular printer.

Printer Properties

This dialog box is different for different printers. Commonly you will at least be able to set page orientation, the type and size of paper, the color and quality of the printing.

Printer Properties

The values shown ought to agree with what you set in Page Setup, but sometimes printers and word processors have trouble communicating. Check to see how well yours get along. Probably you will find that they agree, so you'd only have to look in one place. But if you forgot to look earlier, here's another spot to look.

  1. Make changes, if needed. Colored ink is much more expensive than black and the printing is slower also. Be sure you have permission before choosing to print in color.
     
  2. Click on OK to close the Printer Properties dialog.

Options | Print

  1. Back in the Print dialog box, click on the Options button. The Options dialog opens to the Print tab.

    Your settings should match the illustration.

    Options dialog - Print tab

    Using Background printing allows you to work on other things while the computer sends information to the printer. With this box unchecked, you would have to wait for the printer to finish before you could do anything else!

    Reverse print order is a useful option for some printers. A page printed by most ink jet printers comes out of the printer face up, so the ink has a second to dry before anything touches it. (Pages come out of a laser printer face down.) This puts the first page printed underneath the next one. You have to resort the whole stack to get page one on top. This is not much of a problem for 2 or 3 pages, but it's a real pain for 20 or 30, especially if the pages are not numbered!

Print

  1. Click on the OK button to close the Options dialog.
     
  2. Print icon Back in the Print dialog, click on OK and the print job will start.

    You may see a message from your printer or from the network about the status of your print job. The printer icon will appear in the Tray. If several computers share the same printer, your print job will have to wait its turn in the queue. (Ask your instructor or network guru how to view the list of print jobs to see where yours is in the waiting list.)

    WarningDo not close your document until your print job is finished and you have checked it for errors!
     

  3. Collect your printed document from the printer's out tray. 
     
  4. Check for errors.
     
  5. If all is fine, close the document and close Word. If prompted to save the document, say Yes. (That means Word thinks you made a change since the last save. Even a click counts. Did you click inside the document after saving last time?)
     
  6. Class disk Back diskBackup your Class disk. (Copy all the files on the Class disk to the Back disk.) Make it a habit to have 2 copies of your documents. When one copy gets trashed, it won't be quite such a disaster if you have a backup copy.