Unable to print using Ctl+P and all attachments recognized as pdf's
Suddenly I cannot print any email attachments using either CTL+P or the Print icon from Gmail. Firefox opens a new tab and gives me the choices of opening or saving the attachment.The File/Print option works fine.
Furthermore, every type of document is recognized as a pdf, MS Office, spreadsheets, etc., all show document type pdf.
All Replies (8)
Hi ken33, how are you opening the attachments in Firefox? When I hover over an attachment in a message, I get various icons:
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Clicking the title gives me a preview on top of the message. Clicking the print icon on Google's preview screen gives me a new tab and --
- PDF attachment - opens the PDF in Firefox's built-in PDF viewer
- XLSX attachment - Google converts the file to PDF and opens it in Firefox's built-in PDF viewer
-- and launches the print dialog.
I think it'd prefer to download files rather than use the print button (or pressing Ctrl+p, which the Gmail previewer appears to hijack to run its own print code).
I click on the attachment, which brings up a preview window. Then I click on the Print icon to print it. That invokes my printer dialog. This has worked without issue for as long as I can remember, until very recently. Now, it opens a dialog box asking me if I want to open or save a pdf. See the screenshots. Note that the attachment is an Excel file.
Thanks
Modified by ken33
Yes, Google is converting the Excel sheet to a PDF and then launching the PDF. In my case, because my Firefox is set to show PDFs in a tab, I don't get a download dialog. It looks like your Firefox is set to open PDFs externally.
Do you prefer to view PDFs in a tab in Firefox? Check out this article: View PDF files using Firefox’s built-in viewer.
But I suspect you might get better results with spreadsheets if you open them in Excel using the download button on the attachment, and print from there.
Thanks for your reply. But I’m not interested in viewing or downloading or saving the attachment. I simply want to print it. Firefox has very recently stopped recognizing Gmail’s print icon.
As far as I can tell, that is how the Gmail attachment print button works at the moment. It generates a PDF, and your PDF setting determines whether it can print immediately from Firefox or needs to be downloaded.
Just tried it on a Windows machine and it works fine (as do Safari and Chrome, of course). Click on the Print icon and it invokes the printer dialog. So I would say it's a bug.
What is your setting for PDFs on your Mac Firefox? You can check using the steps in the previously referenced article: View PDF files using Firefox’s built-in viewer.
OK, that was helpful. My settings were "Always Ask" with PDF Expert being the default viewer If I change it to "Preview in Firefox" it opens in a new tab AND opens the print dialog as I want. With "Always Ask", even if I choose to open it in PDF Expert or Preview, I need to take another step to invoke the print dialog.
Thanks for helping to sort it out.