Problem printing from the Forum in Firefox

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 6 Feb 2009 3:44 pm

Wiz, or anyone else with technical expertise, could you take a look at this topic I posted in Forum Feedback? It's got me, and b0b, stumped.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewforum.php?f=7

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 6 Feb 2009 5:43 pm

Brint;
Please post a link to the forum page where you embedded the image of the copedent. I will visit it and try to print it out and report back here.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 7 Feb 2009 9:43 am

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 62#1323162

The problem seems to arise only when trying to print from the normal Forum page. I tried printing from the Edit Post page, with the post in Preview as well, and both in the Edit box and the Preview the chart printed fine--except that in Preview the alignment of columns slipped a bit sideways, but not enough to make the chart unreadable.

I have removed the extra set of tab markers I refer to in the Feedback thread, so the post linked to here is in its original form.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 7 Feb 2009 9:58 am

Houston, we have a problem!

I am investigating this issue that affects my Firefox browser also. I cannot print out monospace font tablature either.

I'll try to find a fix and post it here and in the Feedback topic.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 7 Feb 2009 10:10 am

Alright, I got a good printout. I chose Print > (select) Pages 1 to 1 > OK. Left to its own the printout would have occupied two pages, with almost nothing on page two.

Before, I tried selecting the tabulature and printing the Selection, but all I got were black rectangles where fonts were supposed to be. Printing the entire first page gave the desired results. The Tab font printed out as designated: Courier.

I check the option to allow web pages to specify their own fonts. I do not override web page style sheets unless the fonts are too small to read.

My printer is an HP OfficeJet 5610.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 7 Feb 2009 10:38 am

Wiz, I tried the exact same everything as you before, and again just now, and I still get the black rectangles!

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 7 Feb 2009 10:44 am

Brint;
Check your installed Fonts folder to see if the "Courier" Font is installed.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 7 Feb 2009 11:18 am

I didn't know for sure where to look, so I did a Search. In the folder C:\WINDOWS\FONTS there's a very long list of fonts--"Courier 10, 12, 15" and Courier New, Courier New Bold, Courier New Bold Italic, and Courier New Italic are on the list. There's another folder called "C:\FILES\WINDOWS\FONTS" that contains only 6 items all starting with A.(?)

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 7 Feb 2009 11:26 am

You do have the Courier font installed.

Try to find answers on the Mozilla Knowledge Base Support pages.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 7 Feb 2009 9:37 pm

Problem is, I really have no idea how to formulate the question. I tried "Printing monospace fonts", and got a half dozen topics having nothing to do (as far as I could tell) with this problem.

It seems to me, as a result of the various experiments I've tried, that while the problem I'm having is Firefox-specific (the chart prints in IE), it's more particularly a matter of the relationship between some particular aspect of, or setting in, Firefox interacting with some particular aspect of, or setting in, the Forum specifically. Those black rectangles with occasional symbols, in numbers much more than the number of characters that are supposed to show, and arranged in lines whose length and pattern bear no relation I can see to the format of the chart, sure seem to suggest that two programs are failing to communicate. This suggests to me, in my fog of ignorance, that there's something to do with "coding" of some kind, though I have no earthly idea of what that term means in computer terms.

My experiments that I described in the "Feedback" thread:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=151582
showed that my Firefox can print the chart under many normal Forum conditions, just not under the basic "read" status of the Forum. How come the chart prints when it's displayed in the "Preview" box, or when it appears as a Quote, or when it's displayed in the Post a Reply or Edit Post box, but not when it's displayed in the regular topic "read" box?
Or when I "double tab" it in the read box, but not when I single tab it?

I just went through a series of prints in which I added sets of tab markers one set at a time, up to five sets, as shown in the edited original post:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 62#1323162
and printed each time from the read box.

The results:

(printing using "Selection" in every instance)

Single tab marker set: black rectangles
Double tab: chart printed
Triple tab: black rectangles
Quadruple tab: " "
Quintuple tab: " "

What can this mean? Firefox was capable of printing the chart--but ONLY when it was double tabbed! Doesn't that mean there's something unique in the coded language the Forum is sending in that instance?

Is this relevant?
From the Forum "BBCode" help page:

Note that the [tab] BBCode was added by b0b specifically for users of The Steel Guitar Forum - it won't work on other phpBB systems.

Don Poland · Post by **Don Poland** » 9 Feb 2009 6:55 pm

I am using Firefox 3.0.6 and I was able to print the tab from the link posted. Not sure what the problem is but it is not Firefox. I am using Times New Roman font but not sure how that would affect it or cause problems.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 9 Feb 2009 9:00 pm

Wiz, if you're still reading this thread, could the problem have anything to do with NoScript? If I'm not mistaken, you use this add-on, and so do I. I think I've had the same problem both with script allowed and not allowed for the Forum--I'm pretty sure, but my many trials were a couple of days ago, and I've used up a lot of ink and paper already.

At this point it's not really about the charts; as I've recounted, I can find a way around the problem to print them. But given that Don, and b0b as he's said, apparently have no problem in the first place, it bugs me that there must be a way to fix this, but I can't find it. I hate not solving puzzles!!!

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 9 Feb 2009 10:09 pm

Brint Hannay wrote:Wiz, if you're still reading this thread, could the problem have anything to do with NoScript?

I do use NoScript! and have allowed the SGF and most other sites I frequent (after checking the home page source code for injected exploits). I was able to get a good printout of your single tab chart after choosing Pages 1 To 1. When I tried just selecting and printing the selection it must have left out the CSS Stylesheet rules, causing the fonts to fail.

The SGF Stylesheet specifies that tablature uses Courier as the first selection. This is the same font as is used in code tags. It is a monospaced font.

I think that this problem you are having with the fonts is related to our Stylesheet rule specifying the font to look for in the Tab section. Somehow, your browser is misinterpreting this directive and cannot figure out which font to use. My failure to printout correctly from a text selection in the Tab area verifies that argument.

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 9 Feb 2009 11:07 pm

I think that this problem you are having with the fonts is related to our Stylesheet rule specifying the font to look for in the Tab section. Somehow, your browser is misinterpreting this directive and cannot figure out which font to use. My failure to printout correctly from a text selection in the Tab area verifies that argument.

I think I understand, in principle. But where to look for a fix? The browser can present the chart onscreen, it just can't PRINT it, so it's somewhere in the area of Print commands. (Incidentally, the results are the same whether I print from "File>Print" within Firefox or use Control+P.) My font settings, in computer and in Firefox, appear to be what they're supposed to be. And if Don, and b0b, are not having this problem it seems it must not be inescapably inherent in Firefox and/or the Forum.

I went into View>Page Source while I had my post open, and there was a large amount of to me incomprehensible computer language, wherein I found a section containing the title of my post, and a lot of what I take to be code stuff in which "stylesheet" and "CSS" appeared. I tried to copy and paste it here but it was lost in translation. Is there information in there I could potentially work with to set something differently?

I can't help thinking there might be a clue in the fact that, in my "five tab" experiment above, the chart DID print, as Selection, when it was "Tab within Tab". (Unfortunately, a clue I am too clueless to interpret.)

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 10 Feb 2009 1:54 pm

Here is something you might try. It lets me print things that sometimes print wrong when I print straight to the printer as usual (such as Encore, the music notation program.)
First, install the free program CutePDF. When you print, CutePDF shows up on the list of printers. So you select it, and it will create a .pdf file.
Then open that pdf file in Adobe Reader or Acrobat, and print to your printer.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 10 Feb 2009 1:59 pm

Are you printing the whole page, or just a selection?

Brint Hannay · Post by **Brint Hannay** » 10 Feb 2009 6:02 pm

It doesn't seem to make a difference for me. I just went back to this thread:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... igans+c6th
which is where I got started on this.

I just now printed the entire topic--6 print pages--by choosing "All", and everything printed fine except for Richard Sinkler's chart, which came out black rectangles and symbols, like mine does under normal conditions.

As I noted in my post above, the exceptions--the cases where my chart DOES print from the normal Forum page--are when the chart is surrounded with a SECOND set of "tab" markers (thus showing on the Forum page as Tab WITHIN Tab), or when it's in a Quote.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 10 Feb 2009 7:57 pm

This has to be a bug in Firefox.

FWIW, Firefox crashes the first time I try to print ANYTHING in a new session, to one specific printer. Then I restart it and allow it to restore the crashed session, and THEN I can print. Weird.