Sending Your Document to the Printer

When you have finished a particular document and are ready to generate a hard copy, Word makes it easy for you to get your document to the printer. In fact, you have three choices:

• You can send the document directly to the printer (no questions asked) by clicking the Print button on the Standard toolbar.

• You can open the Print dialog box (select File , Print ) and set any print options that you want, such as printing a particular range of pages or printing multiple copies of the same document.

• You also have the option of previewing your hard copy before printing. This enables you to view your document exactly as it will appear on the printed page.

  To preview your document before printing, click the Print Preview button on the Word Standard toolbar. The Print Preview window opens for the current document (see Figure 14.1).

  Figure 14.1. The Print Preview mode enables you to view your document the way it will print.

  

You will find that the Print Preview window provides several viewing tools that you can use to examine your document before printing.

• Zoom In or Out In the Print Preview window, the mouse pointer appears as a magnifying glass. Click once on your document to zoom in, and then click a second time to zoom out. To turn this feature off (or on again), click the Magnifier button.

• Zoom by Percentage You can change to different zoom levels on the current document by using the Zoom drop-down arrow.

• View Multiple Pages You can also zoom out and view several pages at once in the Preview window. Click Multiple Pages , and then drag to select the number of pages to be shown at once.

• Shrink to Fit If you have a two-page document and only a small amount of text appears on the second page, you can condense all the text to fit on the first page only; click the Shrink to Fit button.

When you have completed viewing your document in the Print Preview mode, you can click the Print button to print the document, or if you want to edit the document before printing, click the Close button on the toolbar.