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Where did Page Setup / Margins & Header/Footer go?

  • 12 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 802 views
  • Last reply by arend1

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I'm using Firefox 85.0.2 . . . I was doing this (below), to customize my header and footer, but in this version of FF, I no longer see this in Options - only in: about:config . . . keyword "footer" . . . there, I would have to change it for 5 different ways of printing (to printers or to PDF)

I need to get rid of printing the URL in the footer - many times, it's too long, and I don't need it.

Where did the Page Setup option go?

I see in the current Print Options, you have to go to - More Settings / Margin / Custom - to see those. Why would they put this so many levels down?

It used to be: File / Page Setup / Margins & Header/Footer . . . "Customize" Headers & Footers:

Option 1 (left) . . . there are two leading spaces:

 > > &T
 > > &U . . . &D . . . &PT

Option 2 (left) . . . get rid of the ">"s, and just have the two leading spaces:

 &T
 &U . . . &D . . . &PT
I'm using Firefox 85.0.2 . . . I was doing this (below), to customize my header and footer, but in this version of FF, I no longer see this in Options - only in: about:config . . . keyword "footer" . . . there, I would have to change it for 5 different ways of printing (to printers or to PDF) I need to get rid of printing the URL in the footer - many times, it's too long, and I don't need it. Where did the Page Setup option go? I see in the current Print Options, you have to go to - More Settings / Margin / Custom - to see those. Why would they put this so many levels down? It used to be: File / Page Setup / Margins & Header/Footer . . . "Customize" Headers & Footers: Option 1 (left) . . . there are two leading spaces: > > &T > > &U . . . &D . . . &PT Option 2 (left) . . . get rid of the ">"s, and just have the two leading spaces: &T &U . . . &D . . . &PT

Chosen solution

New option for users of Firefox 97 and higher: Restoring the Page Setup dialog to the file menu. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1373471#answer-1523526

I'll give you two options with the details to follow:

(1) Become comfortable with entering header/footer detail in the Advanced Configuration Editor (about:config) screen.

(2) Roll back to the old school Firefox approach of separate Print/Preview/Page Setup displays. (I don't know how long this option will be available.)


Left, Center, and Right Header and Footer Preferences

Headers and Footers are split into three parts each of which can contain free-form text and placeholders that Firefox replaces with values computed at print time. The placeholders are:

  • Title => &T (placed in Header-Left by default)
  • URL => &U (placed in Header-Right by default)
  • Page number of total (x of y) => &PT (placed in Footer-Left by default)
  • Page number (x) => &P
  • Date/Time => &D (placed in Footer-Right by default)

Here is how you can update your header and footer content for particular printers or all printers:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

Headers

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste print_h and pause while the list is filtered -- you'll see something like the first screenshot (the exact number of custom preferences depends on how many different printers you have used)

The following three preferences are the default, but any printer-specific value overrides them, allowing you to customize individual printers:

  • print.print_headerleft
  • print.print_headercenter
  • print.print_headerright

To edit a default setting, double-click in the implicit second column (wide area to the right of the preference names before the pencil button) or click the edit button. After making changes, press Enter to save your change, or click the blue checkmark button.

To modify a setting for a particular printer (for example, print.printer_Mozilla_Save_to_PDF.print_headerleft), you have two choices:

(A) To have Firefox use the default setting, delete the current custom setting using the trash can at the right end of the row for the custom setting.

(B) Edit the custom setting as desired.

Footers

(3) In the search box in the page, type or paste print_f and pause while the list is filtered

As with headers, the following three preferences are the default, but any printer-specific value overrides them, allowing you to customize individual printers:

  • print.print_footerleft
  • print.print_footercenter
  • print.print_footerright

Edits work the same way for footers as they do for headers.


Roll Back Printing Changes

This preference may be removed in the future once everything is fully debugged, but it's still available for now:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste tab_mo and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the print.tab_modal.enabled preference to switch between the new experience (true) and the classic experience (false)

(4) If there is another preference named app.normandy.startupRolloutPrefs.print.tab_modal.enabled you can double-click that one to switch it to false as well. If you do not have that one, no need to create it.

Since you are setting to false, it will look roughly like this:

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (12)

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Chosen Solution

New option for users of Firefox 97 and higher: Restoring the Page Setup dialog to the file menu. See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1373471#answer-1523526

I'll give you two options with the details to follow:

(1) Become comfortable with entering header/footer detail in the Advanced Configuration Editor (about:config) screen.

(2) Roll back to the old school Firefox approach of separate Print/Preview/Page Setup displays. (I don't know how long this option will be available.)


Left, Center, and Right Header and Footer Preferences

Headers and Footers are split into three parts each of which can contain free-form text and placeholders that Firefox replaces with values computed at print time. The placeholders are:

  • Title => &T (placed in Header-Left by default)
  • URL => &U (placed in Header-Right by default)
  • Page number of total (x of y) => &PT (placed in Footer-Left by default)
  • Page number (x) => &P
  • Date/Time => &D (placed in Footer-Right by default)

Here is how you can update your header and footer content for particular printers or all printers:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

Headers

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste print_h and pause while the list is filtered -- you'll see something like the first screenshot (the exact number of custom preferences depends on how many different printers you have used)

The following three preferences are the default, but any printer-specific value overrides them, allowing you to customize individual printers:

  • print.print_headerleft
  • print.print_headercenter
  • print.print_headerright

To edit a default setting, double-click in the implicit second column (wide area to the right of the preference names before the pencil button) or click the edit button. After making changes, press Enter to save your change, or click the blue checkmark button.

To modify a setting for a particular printer (for example, print.printer_Mozilla_Save_to_PDF.print_headerleft), you have two choices:

(A) To have Firefox use the default setting, delete the current custom setting using the trash can at the right end of the row for the custom setting.

(B) Edit the custom setting as desired.

Footers

(3) In the search box in the page, type or paste print_f and pause while the list is filtered

As with headers, the following three preferences are the default, but any printer-specific value overrides them, allowing you to customize individual printers:

  • print.print_footerleft
  • print.print_footercenter
  • print.print_footerright

Edits work the same way for footers as they do for headers.


Roll Back Printing Changes

This preference may be removed in the future once everything is fully debugged, but it's still available for now:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste tab_mo and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the print.tab_modal.enabled preference to switch between the new experience (true) and the classic experience (false)

(4) If there is another preference named app.normandy.startupRolloutPrefs.print.tab_modal.enabled you can double-click that one to switch it to false as well. If you do not have that one, no need to create it.

Since you are setting to false, it will look roughly like this:

Modified by AliceWyman

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Things keep improving, so I'll pass on the Roll Back method . . .

Here's what I found - The Config Editor settings are not difficult at all to do. Thank you!

Here's what I thought of to simplify it:

1.) Delete all of the individual printer settings 2.) Refresh 3.) With just the Defaults showing, enter in the desired setting codes

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Other questions:

&D shows the Short date as: M/d/yyyy, and then the time

To change the format of the Short date, go to: Control Panel / Date and Time / Change date and time / Change calendar settings / Formats - Short date . . . change it from M/d/yyyy . . . to . . . MM/dd/yy (my date format preference)

1.) How do you get rid of the time, which appears after the date? In IE, you used a lowercase "d" (&d), but that doesn't work here.

2.) Is there a way to change the font for just the Header and Footer, to something like Microsoft Sans Serif 10?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Modified by sludge7051-x

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For #1: I don't know of a way to get the date without the time. I tried to search in the source code but... terms like title, URL, date, and so on are too common for me to locate it.

For #2: Firefox uses the default font face and size listed on the Options page. That won't affect websites that declare their own fonts, but will affect sites that don't.

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Thanks!

Being able to get the info you want on the header and footer is important. This helps me a lot.

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Regarding #1, there is currently no way to get the date without the time. The currently supported special code's are listed at:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/f1159268add2fd0959e9f91b474f5da74c90f305/modules/libpref/init/all.js#926

and are processed at:

https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/f1159268add2fd0959e9f91b474f5da74c90f305/layout/generic/nsPageFrame.cpp#205

It looks like there is a very old bugzilla request for this at:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231068

Honestly, I think that should be the default so I'll put that on the backlog to fix. The chances of me remembering to come back here once that is fixed are low though, so if you want to keep track of that create a bugzilla.mozilla.org account and CC yourself to that bug.

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Jonathan Watt said

It looks like there is a very old bugzilla request for this at: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231068 Honestly, I think that should be the default so I'll put that on the backlog to fix.

But... if we could keep the current &D (or automatically migrate it to &DT), that would be appreciated.

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I'm following the Bugzilla 231068 now, thanks!

It would be good if &D corresponded to the Windows formats available to choose from, like "Short date".

Also, it would be good if you could have "NumPages" (total number of pages) as seen in Word, also, ie: Page 1 of 5

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I recently figured out how to do the footer how I want in Word.

Here's how - this is a text file on my Google Documents:

Word 2010 Header - Footer - How To.txt . . . https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hZGbT2-3Ictcv4gYYU39aW8AQJ4p1lxx/view?usp=sharing

Is this common knowledge for all Word users?

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sludge7051-x said

Also, it would be good if you could have "NumPages" (total number of pages) as seen in Word, also, ie: Page 1 of 5

That's &PT (instead of &P).

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Thanks for pointing that out!

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I don't like the new print option in Firefox. I like being able to edit Headers and Footers.

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TedTheTechGuy said

I don't like the new print option in Firefox. I like being able to edit Headers and Footers.

Fortunately, you still have options. See this reply earlier in the thread: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1326685#answer-1393704

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TedTheTechGuy said

I don't like the new print option in Firefox. I like being able to edit Headers and Footers.

I agree with this comment. Perhaps an add on could be created that would make it possible to fill in the headers and footers again. Or just restore the old situation.