Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Print Preview: Print/Close = Close/Quit

This is old but it trips up new users frequently. The language on the print preview window uses the following, Print and Close are the specific victims of this post.

When you click Print, instead of sending the plot job to the printer it returns you to the print dialog. When you click Close, instead of closing the preview window and returning you to the print dialog Revit bails out of printing/plotting all together. As if you said, "Aw...nevermind, I didn't want to print!"

My present versions of Excel and Word (2002, too lazy to upgrade 8-) ) work similarly so I suppose this means that Revit is Window's compliant. Except that Word just prints when you click print where Excel returns to the print dialog. This doesn't change the fact that I frequently meet people who get tripped up by it.

It would be nice if the language of the buttons could be changed to be more obvious. Such as "Close Preview" and "Cancel Printing" assuming the actual results are not changed. If we could redefine the behavior as well I'd like to see Print mean Print and "Close" say "Close Preview" and close the preview window, returning to the Print dialog instead of bailing out.

Potaytoe...pahtahtoe perhaps...my 2.25 cents.

[Edit 04/23/09 - After using Office 2007 for awhile now I've noticed that the language is cleaned up for this. Print...prints and Close says Close Print Preview now instead. When you use Preview instead Print takes you to the Print dialog to let you make some choices. It offers Close Print Preview too. Much better and Revit ought to emulate it too.]

1 comment:

architect11 said...

haha! nice one. i've noticed this too! In a world where close a lot of times doesn't necessarily mean close, I often hit close myself