Printing...
Hi, it's me, with my suggestion of the month. I would really love it if the printing part of the program could be tuned up just a little bit, for those of us that still haven't managed to go completely paper-free. Each week I plan my menus, and have between 7 and 15 recipes, many (but not all) of which I need to print. At the moment, the process goes: I print the meal plan, but don't choose "print recipes" because I don't want all recipes. Then, one by one, I click each recipe I want to print, choose print (click) choose don't print source and picture so that it fits on one page (click click) print (click) go back to recipe (click) and sometimes because I got lost in my clicks, choose planner (click).
Here's my idea: set general print preferences in settings (no photo, no source, fit to one page if possible, etc.) . These preferences can be over-ridden if you print an individual recipe, but will hold when you are printing a group, as in menus. When you go to print the menu, instead of a button that says "print all 28 recipes", there could be a little tick box next to each recipe in the calendar that says "print" and you tick each recipe you want to print along with the menu. Or something that lets you select which recipes to print. And, the final related request, make sure there is a page break between the printed calendar and the first recipe (on the rare occasion when I print all recipes, the first recipe usually starts on the calendar page, which makes it hard to tack the calendar to the fridge).
Not urgent, but it sure would be great.
:)
2 Posted by shelleyevans on 26 Jan, 2012 10:26 PM
Well, I think maybe I was too wordy with my suggestion. Or else I am the only one who prints recipes, or the only one too lazy to look through my cookbooks. Just wanted to make sure my requests had registered....?
1) would be lovely to tick off which recipes you want to print when you print a week/month menu.
2) would be lovely to have a page break between the printed calendar and the first printed recipe.
3) would be nice to set general preferences for printing (ie no source, yes photo, no description, 9pt font, etc.).
I am perfectly willing to accept the possibility that all ideas have been considered and rejected. Everyone has their own perfect world.
:)
Support Staff 3 Posted by Clint on 29 Jan, 2012 08:37 PM
Hey Shelley,
Thanks as always! All of your ideas have been suggested and scheduled (or
should I say noted).
1. This is a long overdue feature (like so many).
2. this should already be working. What browser are you using?
Yours,
Clint
4 Posted by shelleyevans on 30 Jan, 2012 01:03 AM
Hi back,
Well, I just got a little more systematic in my investigations, and discovered that the problem (no page breaks) actually only occurs in Internet Explorer. I use IE8 because IE9 broke some of my desktop gadgets. And I have a maddening, cludgy workaround for printing my PTE calendars: although I use Chrome exclusively for everything, I can only print my plan to eat calendars in Internet Explorer. Why, you ask? Well, because only in IE can I print background colors. This helps me distinguish between notes and food.
So... I will print calendar only in IE8, and then collection of recipes (including extra calendar) in Chrome, and that should fix my wagon. If there were an easy way to print those background colors in chrome, that would fix my wagon even more.
And, on the topic of fixing wagons-- I am happy to wait forever and ever for whatever changes you add. You are clearly working so hard, and it's already so helpful. Today I paid my 9 year old son $5 to update my freezer inventory list, which I printed straight from PTE, handed to him, received back with notes, which I added to my computer. Wow. Life is good.
:)
Support Staff 5 Posted by Clint on 30 Jan, 2012 04:43 PM
It looks like Chrome is working on adding the background colors option:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=17a4ac343580c8d3&hl=en
You really make my day (which can be helpful on Monday) with your personal
Plan to Eat stories! Thanks for being such an encouraging customer over the
years!
6 Posted by support@kjpmail.com on 30 Jan, 2012 06:33 PM
Oh my. I see I am not the only one tearing my hair out. Let's hope Google gets this one fixed. It sure would be nice.
You make it easy. :)
7 Posted by shelleyevans on 30 Jan, 2012 06:34 PM
That was me, by the way. Weird.
8 Posted by maureenshaughnessy on 15 May, 2012 07:22 PM
I love your suggestions, Shelley
9 Posted by shelleyevans on 16 May, 2012 11:28 AM
Thank you so much. Funnily, I was about to update this post, saying that between Clint's adjustments and Chrome improvements, I am now able to print pretty efficiently, without the streamlined refinements I suggested. Here's how I do it-- first print my menu, without any recipes, and adjust the margins to whatever size I want my menu to be. Then start to print it again, this time with "print all (x) recipes" checked. In the print setup dialogue, I set the margins as narrow as possible, to fit as much recipe as possible on a page, then scroll down and note the page numbers of the recipes I want to print, and put those numbers in the dialogue box that says "print only page numbers...." and then print. This ought to have been the way it worked all along, but Chrome has been a little slow to catch up on some of these printing features. I am using the beta Chrome, and it's now working for me.
10 Posted by ValS on 18 May, 2012 04:35 PM
Hi Clint
Here's my suggestions:-
1. Ticking which recipes that I want to print as suggested by Shelley would be really useful.
2. Having the option to tick just the ingredients to print for each recipe would be even better!
3. I do my meal planning for the week on a Friday but I plan from a Saturday to the next Friday, so I can't print my meal planner for the week until its Saturday, as the week can only start on the current day (Friday) or Sun or Mon, would it be hard to have an option for the week to start on a Saturday?
Other than that I'm loving it, its getting quicker and easier to use Plan to Eat every week and I recommend it to everyone!
Thanks
Val