PageFour Help - Printing

When printing with PageFour, you have full control over headers, footers, page numbers, font, and paragraph settings. The first time you use the advanced printing features, the original default settings will apply. The default printing options are:

All of these settings can be overridden with ease. For a first glimpse of the options available, open the Print menu from the main Notebook menu, or open the drop down menu next to the print button on the toolbar.

Current Page. Prints the current page. If no default print template has been set, the page will be printed using the font and paragraph settings as they appear on the screen, without headers, footers, or page numbers. If a default print template has been set, the printing options in the template will be applied to the current page.

Selected Text. Prints only the selected text on the current page. As above, the printing options used will depend on whether a default print template has been set.

Selected Pages and Folders. Prints all of the selected pages or folders, one after the other. If a folder is selected, then all pages within that folder, and any sub-folders will be printed. If a default print template is set, these settings will be used on every printed page.

Advanced Printing. Opens the Advanced Printing dialog. This dialog allows for Printer settings such as margins and page orientation to be set, as well as a print template to be chosen from the list available.

Edit Templates. Opens the Templates Dialog. This allows you to create new print templates, make changes to templates, and rename or delete existing templates. These is no limit to the number of different templates you can create.

Set Default Template. Expanding this menu will show a list of all the currently available print templates. If a template has been marked as the Default Print Template, it will have a check alongside. From here you can change or switch off the default at any time. This is a very quick method of changing the template to use when printing without opening the Advanced Printing dialog.

Set Default Printer. Expanding this menu will show a list of all printers installed on your computer. When you open PageFour, the Windows default printer will be selected. Changing the printer selection will ensure that all PageFour printed pages go to whichever printer you select. If you only have a single printer installed on your computer, this menu will not appear.

A printed page rarely looks the same as the page on the screen. What is comfortable to the eye and easy to use when working, is often difficult to read, or too cramped on the printed page. Where once it may have been necessary to make adjustments to pages prior to printing, PageFour now allows you to create Print Templates, which can then be applied when printing.

This means that instead of changing the format, font, or structure of a page, all you have to do is create or change a print template to meet your requirements.

The options available in a print template are:

This means that you can work in the way that suits you, yet print your manuscript in a way that suits your publisher. If you work on a high resolution monitor, using a Verdana 12 font with single line spacing, a template will allow you to print using Times New Roman 12, with double line spacing, and appropriate headers, footers, and page numbers.

The Print Template dialog can be opened from the Edit Templates menu off the main Notebook Print menu, or from the drop down menu to the right of the print button on the toolbar.

The dialog is made up of two parts: a list of templates to choose from on the left, and the details of the selected template on the right, spread across four specific tabs. The first time you open the dialog, the New Template will be opened for you. This gives you a starting point to work from.

If you select the New Template in the list and right click, the menu that appears will demonstrate the options available. From here you can:

If you select the New Template in the list and right click, the menu that appears will demonstrate the options available. From here you can:

New: Create a new template.

Edit: Open and make changes to an existing template.

Delete: Delete a template.

Rename: Rename a template.

Default Print Template: Mark a template as the default or uncheck the default. Only one template can be the default. If you have marked a template as the default, the settings within the template will be applied every time you print, unless you override it by specifying a different template in the Advanced Printing dialog. If no template is marked as the default, the page will be printed 'as is' without any changes, headers, or page numbers.

Important: You do not have to change every setting in a template. If all you want to do is add page numbers to the top right of your printed pages, simply go to the Header tab, select Assign Page Numbers, and open the Page Numbers dialog. All the other options can simply be ignored.

Font Settings

The first tab allows you to override font settings on the printed page.

If the Use existing font settings for all pages checkbox is checked, the font will be printed 'as is,' with no changes. Unchecking this option will enable all the overrides. In each case you have the option to decide whether to override a particular font feature or not. For example, checking Override font colour will allow you to specify a colour for all text on the printed page. This means that any differing font colours you set when working will not appear on the printed page. All text will be printed with the specified font.

Many publishers demand manuscripts be submitted using the Times New Roman font with a size of 12. To set this up, it's simply a case of checking the Override font with and Override font size with checkboxes, and selected Times New Roman and 12 from the two drop down lists. For this particular requirement, it would not be necessary to override the font colour or the font attributes.

Selecting Override text attributes with, and choosing the No style option is a very useful method of removing any bold, Italic, underline or strikeout formats from the printed page.

Paragraph Settings

The paragraph settings tab allows you to override spacing before and after paragraphs, change line spacings, as well as adjust left, right, and first line indentations. In the example below, the New Template has been renamed to Manuscript (Times New Roman). Giving your templates meaningful names makes it far easier when choosing which template to apply when printing.

The most common paragraph override is to adjust line spacing to either one and a half or double spacing. It's common to write using single line spacing, yet most publishers require the printed page to be spaced differently. Of the six paragraph override options available, you should only specify those you wish to change. Before and after paragraph settings are rarely changed, as are the left and right indentations. Setting the left and right indentations to 0, will have the effect of cancelling any indentations you made when writing on the printed page. This means that any quoted blocks you had previously indented, will appear unindented when printed.

The final paragraph override option, Override first line indentation is useful if a particular publisher requires paragraphs to be indented slightly on the first line.

Headers & Footers

There are numerous options available when constructing Headers and Footers. You can choose a simple header comprised of the page name, or you can add customised text yourself to make a header of your own choosing. The position of the header, as well as the font used is entirely within your control, as is the construction and format of page numbers within the header.

The options available come in two parts, the basic construct of the header, and any extra elements you wish to add yourself:

Page name only. This uses the name you gave the page as the central component of the header.

First folder and page name. Build the header from the page name and its immediate folder only. For example, if you had a page called Chapter 1, with a folder called My Novel, which itself was within a folder called This Year's Work, the header would be "My Novel | Chapter 1"

Full Notebook name. Uses the complete name, comprising Notebook, all necessary folders, and the page name. In the above mentioned example, where the page was within the Novels notebook, the header would be "Novels | This Year's Work | My Novel | Chapter 1"

User defined. This option allows you to decide exactly what appears on the header, bypassing any page or folder names. For example, your folder structures may not be the same as your novel's name, and you may not wish the page name to appear at all. Simply typing in "My Novel," will force this header onto each page.

Additional text before header. Allows you to prefix the header with your own text. In the screenshot above, "Pride & Prejudice - " will be written to the header before the page name.

Additional text after header. Allows you to add your own text to the header. In the screenshot above, ", by Jane Austen" will be added to the end of the header.

No header or header page numbers on first PageFour page. Checking this option, or the corresponding Footer option, will ensure that the first PageFour page does not have a printed header. This is to allow for title pages that traditionally do not have page numbers or headers.

Position header to left. Writes the header from the left of the page.

Center. Writes the header to the center of the page.

Right. Writes the header adjusted to the right of the page.

Assign Page Numbers. Allows you to include page numbers as part of the header construct.

Page Numbers. Opens the Page Number dialog, where you can specify the format of the page numbers.

Font. Opens the font dialog, from where the font, size, format and colour of the header can be changed.

The complete header for the given example would therefore be "Pride & Prejudice - Chapter 1, by Jane Austen." It would be printed using Times New Roman 10, Italic, and to the center of the page. If you were printing multiple pages, the only part of the header that would change would be the "Chapter 1" element.

Footers allow for the very same options as headers, though they are rarely used in the same way.

Page Numbers

A range of options are available to allow you to construct and position page numbers in any way you choose. They include positioning the number to the left, center, or right, adding text before and after the number, deciding whether to use numerics or words when printing, and specifying a number as the starting point when incrementing the pages.

The available options are:

Position number at center. This writes the number at the center of the header or footer.

Position number to left. Writes the number to the left of the header or footer.

Position number to right. Writes the number to the right of the header or footer.

Within left or right margin. This allows you to print the number within the left or right margin, rather than within the header or footer itself. The margin widths must be sufficient to accommodate the number.

Write numbers as allows you to decide if the numbers should appear as normal numerics (1, 2, 3 ...) or as complete words (one, two, three ...). If you decide to use words rather than numbers, you should avoid writing them into the left or right margins when printing large numbers of pages, as the margin width may not be sufficient.

First page number. This allows you to override the starting page number. By default, this will be 1, which means every time you print, the page numbers start at 1. However, you may already have printed the first ten chapters of your novel, and only decide to print the final chapters a few days later. In this case, setting the first page number to the number after the last printed page will allow the two print runs to be joined together seamlessly.

Additional text before number and Additional text after number allow you to wrap the page number in any way you choose. In the example above, the number is surrounded by square brackets, making the final page number appear as [ 1 ]. Any combination or text may be used. You may for example, choose to prefix the number with "page."

In the original example above, the complete header would now show "Pride & Prejudice - Chapter 1, by Jane Austen" written to the center of the page, and page numbers " [ 1 ] " written to the right of the header. It will all appear as one single, seamless, header.

You can create as many different templates as you wish. You may find you print your manuscripts in four or five different ways, depending on who they are being sent to. In this case, simply create four or five different templates, and decide which to use as you print.