Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

How do I choose the option to print in black & white from Mozilla ?

more options

Other browsers I use, (Chrome, Windows Edge, etc) have a different printer default and I could always choose to print black & white instead of color to save on ink. There are no options with the Mozilla printer default to choose black & white, not even in the advanced settings.

Other browsers I use, (Chrome, Windows Edge, etc) have a different printer default and I could always choose to print black & white instead of color to save on ink. There are no options with the Mozilla printer default to choose black & white, not even in the advanced settings.

All Replies (4)

more options

Yes, in Firefox printing is rather rudimentary in comparison with most other web browsers, except on Mac OSX.

In Windows & most Linux 'flavors" when you initiate printing via the standard keyboard command of { Ctrl + P } you get what is known as the native print dialog where you can open Preferences to the right of Printer > Name. That dialog window will also appear after you leave the Print Preview window if you are using a Toolbar button to initiate printing.

Then using that Preferences button what you will see is the printer driver software window for the selected Printer; that is where the Black & White option will appear.

more options

I checked that and there is no option to choose black & white or color.

more options

Hi, yes they did a change in the Printer part some time ago it seems. I just noticed a week ago. You may have to add a Extension on to get back full control of Print. https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/search/?platform=windows&q=print

more options

So, if you can't change the printer properties to force grayscale, you could consider changing the page by injecting a "grayscale" style rule. That will flip it from color to grayscale.

Here's how you set it up: you install the script to your Bookmarks Toolbar or Bookmarks Menu, somewhere convenient that you can access when you way to gray a page. You can install from here:

https://www.jeffersonscher.com/res/sumomarklets.html#GrayTog

Here's an old screenshot showing the result of using it on that page:

Full size: https://prod-cdn.sumo.mozilla.net/uploads/images/2017-07-08-10-19-47-090d11.png

Note: Most pages will allow this, but some have rules against external scripts, in which case unfortunately it won't work; you would need a "real" add-on (maybe there is one?).