Printing and Print Preview

     

VisiTrax can print lists of tracks, lists of volumes, tracks in a selected volume, and playlists. You can initiate printing in any of the following ways:

 

Click on the Print toolbar button
Select Print Listing... from the File menu
Type Ctrl-P

 

Print Preview and Page Selection

 

Whenever you initiate printing using one of the above methods, a Print Preview dialog will appear (unless you have disabled this feature; see the Note, below). From this dialog, you can preview on the screen how each printed page will appear, and select page layout, orientation, and the range of pages to print.

 

The Print Preview dialog provides a scrollable page preview panel, plus the following controls:

 

Page layoutThere are two primary layout modes. In Automatic mode, a fixed set of commonly-used data fields will be printed using an efficient presentation style. The set of fields chosen and their layout are tailored for each type of view.
 
The Columns as shown mode (the default) is more flexible. In this mode, the printout will correspond to the main set of columns you have selected for the current view, as well as their ordering and relative width proportions. For still more flexibility, the Duplicate suppression and Indented subheadings controls are also available in this mode.
 
OrientationThis provides convenient switching between Portrait and Landscape page orientation.
 
Page rangeThis lets you select the page or range of pages to be printed.
 
Duplicate suppressionThis control is only available for the Columns as shown page layout, which normally will suppress any row that duplicates data in the all columns of the preceding row. Use this control to reduce the number of leftmost columns compared to the preceding row. For example, if the printout contains 5 columns and this control is set to 4, any row in which columns 1 through 4 are the same as in the preceding row will be suppressed, even if column 5 contains different data.
 
Indented subheadingsThis set of controls is only available for the Columns as shown page layout, in which, by default, all data is printed in tabular columns, with headings that name each column.
 
To print the first one or more columns of data as indented subheading levels, set Subhead levels to the number of subheading levels you want. Headings will appear only above any remaining columns.
 
Ordinarily, each subheading level will use the data from each of the first columns, in left-to-right order. However, if the first n data columns are fixed-width fields (e.g. track number, index, year), you can combine up to the first n+1 data columns into the first subheading level, via the Join columns... control.
 
Despite consuming a bit more paper, subheadings are invaluable for reducing or eliminating data truncation, and the resulting printouts tend to be more aesthetically appealing.
 
Additional linesThis control is only available for the Columns as shown page layout, in which, by default, all data is printed in tabular columns, with headings that name each column. However, some columns may be empty much of the time, or they may contain notes or other lengthy material. To print such data as one or more additional lines of text, first arrange the corresponding columns so they appear last, then set the Notes columns control to the number of columns you want printed as additional lines.
 
For example, to print Track Notes as additional lines, arrange your main columns so that Track Notes appears last, then set Notes columns to 1.
 
PrintThis button prints the page or range of pages indicated in the Page range control.
 
SetupThis button is used to access a menu of font setting and printer setup options.
 
DoneClick this button when you are done with the Print Preview dialog.

 

Note: To enable or disable Print Preview, select Options > Enable Print Preview from the View menu. When Print Preview is disabled, a simple pop-up dialog will appear instead. (However, note that some advanced features, such as indented subheadings, are available only via the Print Preview dialog.)

 

Printer Selection and Page Orientation

 

Before printing, you can change printer settings or page orientation by selecting Printer Setup... from the File menu, or by selecting Setup > Printer Setup from the Print Preview dialog. This brings up a standard printer setup dialog for your particular model of printer. The settings you make here will apply to all printouts. (Page orientation can also be changed via the Print Preview dialog's Orientation control.)

 

Print Font Selection

 

To change the fonts used by VisiTrax to print your listings, select Printer Fonts from the File menu, or select Setup from the Print Preview dialog. From the submenu, you can select any of the following:

 

Page Title Font
Column Heading Font
Subheading 1 Font (first-level subheadings)
Subheading 2 Font (second-level subheadings)
Subheading 3 Font (third-level subheadings and any beyond that)
List Items Font
Notes Font (additional lines of text)

 

If you use a color printer, you may wish to assign colors to some of these fonts.

 

Reminder:When printing from the Playlist View, the page title is taken from that view's playlist title, which can be directly edited.

 

Copyright 2006 Synapsa Productions