Set "All Pages" as default for printing

[blocka construction inc]

I recently persuaded my boss to purchase a few PDF-Xchange Editor licenses for our company. However, I am getting complaints from multiple employees regarding the fact that PDF Xchange Editor's print dialog defaults to whatever Page Range was set last. It is annoying a couple employees so much that they're requesting I move them back to Adobe Acrobat (*cringe).

We regularly have to print out a specific page or range of pages from very long documents, but never the same page range twice and all of this is interspersed between the dozens of times per day that we are printing out a WHOLE document. Instead of having to take an extra step on the occasions they need to print a range, they have to remember an extra step every time AFTER they printed a page range. This is proving to be extremely frustrating.

I convinced my boss to buy these licenses with the argument that it was better than Adobe Acrobat in every way that mattered to us and that our PDF-related issues would drop. Instead the complaints are increasing.... which is making me look.... less than competent.

These employees are average office users and all of their experience with Windows has taught them that a print dialog always defaults to All Pages. Even I, an IT professional, am constantly forgetting that XChange Editor plays by different rules and print a page range that I used an hour ago when I meant to print the whole document. It's a minor inconvenience for me, one that I could learn to live with. But I can't (and shouldn't) expect my users to adapt to such a change from what is otherwise an unwritten Windows rule: Print Dialog's default to All Pages.

So please, I beseech thee, fix it so that the print dialog defaults to All pages. Or, at the very least, add an option so users can choose one behavior or another. I would hate for such a trivial thing to be the dealbreaker that prevents me from converting my whole company to XChange Editor.

[Seeker45]

Yes, I fully agree, that is also our experience, see https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 62&t=20610.

It is really annoying that PDF-XChange Editor does not behave like any other program does. I understand why, in theory, this might be a cute feature, but we have tried to get used to it over the last two months, and it just doesn't work.

Most frustrating feature in an otherwise excellent product.

Ralf

[blocka construction inc]

I am absolutely flabbergasted that this isn't a bug but a "feature", supposedly implemented by popular request.

Are you telling me that most people print the same page-range from the same document over and over? That is the only usage case I can imagine where this wouldn't be an annoyance.

Does it not make more sense to type in a specific page-range on the occasions that you need to print a range and have it default to "All" the rest of the time? Because in its current form I need to check the print dialog EVERY TIME to make sure there isn't a page-range set from my last print job. My employees are regularly trying to print a single page document only to get an error because they still had a page-range from something they printed 20 minutes ago.

Seriously, I'm very curious, if you aren't printing the same page-range from the same document repeatedly then what use does this "feature" have?

As someone who has worked IT at several different offices I would strongly urge the folks at Tracker Software to reconsider this feature because your average office user is annoyed and angered by a Print Dialog that doesn't play by the same rules as EVERY OTHER PRINT DIALOG IN WINDOWS. Believe me, I'm seeing/hearing it.

I set up several users with XChange Editor last Tuesday and by Thursday I had received a complaint from EVERY ONE OF THEM, independently, with varying degrees of hostility, about this print-range issue. If there is no workaround I will have to listen to their requests that I move them back to Adobe Acrobat which I really do not want to do.

Please Tracker Software, I beg you, consider at the very least making it an option to have the print range default to "All".

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the posts - I've put in a feature request for this, but I can't promise that it will be implemented, only the implementation of the feature will be given serious consideration.

HTH!

[blocka construction inc]

Thank you Will. I hope they deem it worthwhile to implement.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi Ralf,

I hope they deem it worthwhile to implement.

This feature alone may not be implemented directly, however we have been having discussions here about making a user defined set of 'Defaults' for printing and possibly even printing profiles that your users could set up for common print jobs.

Do you think that would satisfy your tough crowd?

We really did get a lot of feedback that users wanted print settings 'remembered' between jobs as it is now. Rest assured that your voices have been heard and that something is likely to happen, the only question is exactly what and when. We'll keep you posted for sure.

hth

[blocka construction inc]

we have been having discussions here about making a user defined set of 'Defaults' for printing and possibly even printing profiles that your users could set up for common print jobs.

Do you think that would satisfy your tough crowd?

I wouldn't call them a "tough crowd". They're not being critics, they are genuinely struggling with the way page-range defaults are being handled after years of getting used to the standard "All pages" default. Given the high frequency of printing required by their work it is understandable that they see such a relatively small thing as so disproportionately important.

But to answer your question, yes. If I had the ability to set up everyone's print profile to default to "All Pages" it would satisfy everyone here. Aside from this print range thing I haven't received any complaints (in fact I've gotten many compliments) about XChange Editor.

We really did get a lot of feedback that users wanted print settings 'remembered' between jobs as it is now.

I don't doubt that you've received feedback from people who like the current way print settings are handled; but I can't comprehend how this would be useful in any scenario. Unless you are repeatedly printing the same page-range from the same document over and over I can't imagine what other use-cases there are for this "feature". (I will continue putting "feature" in quotes until I hear about how this could be useful)

Rest assured that your voices have been heard and that something is likely to happen, the only question is exactly what and when. We'll keep you posted for sure.

Thank you, that means a lot. Let me say regardless of whether anything comes of this, and regardless of whether my company adopts PDF-XChange Editor or not, you have won me as a customer due to your excellent software and phenomenal forum presence / customer relations. I will be buying my own personal license for use at home.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi again blocka construction,

I didn't mean to be rude when I used the term 'tough crowd' - it was meant to be a little tongue in cheek. I do appreciate your position, as well as theirs. I'm sure that something usable will come to pass. Thanks for sticking with us.

regards

[Seeker45]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for following-up. I also want to answer your question with YES. Like I said, I understand in general that this may be a cute feature, but we are not getting there to like it. And with close to 100 hundred people in a range from "some dislike" to "great dislike" I can assure you that it is not just me

Perhaps one further background information: We have distributed printing centers, where larger volume copies and color print-outs can be generated. It is really frustrating when you believe to have printed a document, you walk over to the nearest printing center, and only then you realize that what actually printed (e.g only the current page) is not want you wanted to print.

So, yes, having the option of setting a default behaviour would be great.

Ralf

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi Seeker45,

Thanks for the post - a feature request has been put in for this and the Dev. Team have said that they plan to implement something that will benefit both those users that want the current behaviour, and users such as yourselves, that want the "All Pages" to be default.

Cheers,

[Seeker45]

Hi,

did you quietly change this behaviour? I did not see a comment in the release notes for the 5.5.308.2 build, but now it seems that the default behaviour is indeed "All pages". That's a great relief.

Cheers
Ralf

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hi Ralf,

Indeed it is now All pages.
It might be one of the "Numerous other minor fixes and improvements." in the release notes

Cheers,
Stefan

[tuanccs]

It would be nice if we can set Page Range selection in Preferences. Sometime we DO want Current Page or Current View to be default to whatever was set last.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hi tuanccs

I believe the Current setup of having the menu contain all those selections is a fairly viable answer for your request, but I'll mention the idea around the office, and see if it brings any merit. Possibly having a "remember my choice" checkbox near the settings my mouse is hovering beside?

Does that sound like a good idea to you?

[tuanccs]

Hi Daniel,
That would be awesome. Or at least behave like MS Word print dialog, remember my choice until I close the document.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi tuanccs,

As Stefan mentioned, we can certainly discuss this in-house, but I would advise that you not get too hopeful here. The current implementation to default to 'All Pages' after each print was very, very widely requested and that is something that most certainly won't change. As for implementing an option to set this in the preferences, the problem with that may be that once we introduce the ability to select a single option to set as default from a single dialog, others will request it for other options in other dialogs and that would be beyond impractical (given the number of individual options available in all of the dialogs). It's tricky to implement something like this well (from a GUI standpoint) for a single option (because where do we put something like that, so that it's intuitively placed, without unnecessarily cluttering the UI or the preferences?), but to do it for more than one becomes beyond nightmarish.

Just something to bear in mind, should the developers decide not to do this.

Cheers,

[tuanccs]

The default Page Range "All Pages" always is not expected after you select "Current Page", "Current View", or "Pages" and try to print again without reopen the document. I would expect the settings stay until I close it.
Below is the scenario that happen to us all the time.
A user selected an option other than "All Page" to print one or two pages from a specification book of hundred of pages. Without close out the document they try to print again and forgot to re-select page range. The printer is a network share printer. They don't realized that they print hundred pages that they don't need until it's too late.

TIA

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

I understand where you are coming from, and while I agree that it has its uses, will makes a very good point, so while I've mentioned it around to others in the office verbally, I cannot put in a formal feature request without a large amount of support requesting the feature.

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Hello,

Just sharing my idea about this :

In the past, Tracker Software was mostly following Adobe's way of working (remember the topic about printing 2 pages on one sheet of paper).

So, if Adobe Acrobat remembers the last printed pages for an open PDF document, why should PDF-XChange Editor not do the same?
Sorry that I can not check the currect behavior of Adobe Acrobat at this very moment.
Adobe Reader DC does NOT seem to remember the printed pages, it returns to 'All'.

To please everyone, you could add a specific parameter for this 'new' print-option, to make it active or not.
You could call it "Remember last printed pages for open PDF documents". By default it should best be turned OFF.

In either case, I would not remember the last printed pages once the PDF is closed.

Something to consider (only in case if Adobe Acrobat is acting that way)?

Best regards.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

This is one of the ideas I've brought to the team here, I personally really like the idea and am pushing for it, but there isn't much I can do to guarantee anything.
Again the problem with this is if we add a single option for one dropdown menu in a single popup window, with only a small handful of people requesting it, we will then need to make every change requested by a very small handful of people. Then we end up with program bloating and far too many excessively large menus that we think are user friendly, but in the end make the program ominous and foreboding to the new user.

[tuanccs]

I really like PDFXE and would like to buy PDF-XChange Editor Plus for all users (25 plus) in our company but I have a hard time try to sell it to half of our users because of this issue.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Thanks for the feedback tuanccs,

We do hear your voice! The suggestion is now wiht the design team and they will consider it!

Regards,
Stefan

[tuanccs]

Thanks for the feedback tuanccs,

We do hear your voice! The suggestion is now wiht the design team and they will consider it!

Regards,
Stefan

Patiently waiting for this feature. Please throw me a bone. Hidden in Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Tracker Software\PDFXEditor\3.0\Settings\Operations\PrintPages would be fine with me.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hi tunaccs,
I have no news yet for you, but in a case where it is likely to be rejected, I would argue that no news is good news!

[tuanccs]

still not be able to remembered the last print setting with 328.1
our maintenance license is about to expired. Really disappointed!

pdfx.png

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello Tunaccs,

I am sorry that we could not keep you pleased, on the one hand we have received the go ahead to formalize the feature request to support all options for Editor Print Profile support, and the ability set a "default" printing profile for the Editor. This would in turn allow you to force the Editor to "override" any chosen settings back to the selected default every time the print dialog opens, instead of remembering.

As we have said before, There are no guarantees about the timeline for this, nor can we promise anything until it is ready.

Kind regards,

[tuanccs]

Hi Daniel,

Any progress?

Thanks

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Tunaccs,

I am checking with Daniel now for updates, but if he has not posted here already, probably there are no news on this subject at this time!

Regards,
Stefan

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello Tunaccs,

AS Stefan mentioned, the ticket itself has seen no development yet, however we have been discussing it in the office recently. We do of course prioritize the features that more users are asking for, and until just this month, there was not much demand for such, so admittedly it was on the backburner, hopefully with the new demand, we can start seeing some action in this direction.

I also notice that I neglected to include the ticket number in my previous post, terribly sorry for that. In the future when asking any member of our support team for an update, please include this ticket number so they can easily find any news for you:
RT#4914: FR: Editor Print Presets

Kind regards,

[tuanccs]

Just checking to see if there is any progress.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hi, tuanccs

Since we last spoke, the ticket has been accepted by the development team, and assigned a work item number. But has since also been delayed while we make many of the major changes coming for V9, some of which would affect how a function like this would work. Once that is in proper order, we should see the development team reallocating its resources and getting to this in due time.

Kind regards,

[tuanccs]

revisit after almost 2 years. Still not yet implemented.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, tuanccs

It seems that this ticket was left by the wayside after the release of V9. I am just reaching out to the team now to see if there is any additional information to add to the ticket, and if we can increase the priority on it.

I do apologize for the inconvenience.

Kind regards,

[veronaship]

I'm here to resurrect this thread and re-request this feature. I run a small print shop, we recently ditched Adobe in favor of XChange Editor. I love the product, the price, the features... except for this one. I can't count the number of prints I've wasted by not noticing that the page range jumped from "All" to "Selected" seemingly just because I interacted with the Thumbnails pane. If this is a must-have feature for some users please put a toggle somewhere in the settings that allows me to set the default behavior.

[Sean - PDF-XChange]

I have asked the development team to take another look at this.

Kind regards,

[Sean - PDF-XChange]

Update - I'm afraid the development team have rejected this request. Sorry we couldn't accommodate you this time.

Kind regards,