Save Paper : Show a dialogue confirming a print job

[Dr.Wong]

Hey everyone,

My father has a problem. He can't help but print ANYTHING he reads on his Mac and then never looks at it again.

Whether it be an email or an online article, he hits print every single time.

As a result, the paper is piling up to the point that the desk is full and he is making piles of paper on the floor.

I have spoken to him about the cost involved and the utter waste of paper but clearly he doesn't care, understand or remember.

Does anyone know of a utility that shows a dialogue confirming whether you want to print or not? One that is triggered when a print job is added to the que or when "print" is clicked.

I'm hoping that if there is an extra step involved that contains a warning about cost and paper usage it will deter him from printing and he can press "cancel" which then cancels the print job.

This should be built into OS X's parental controls.

Even if the system requires the administrator's password to print that would be enough. Is there such a setting?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Whitehill]

My system always asks me to confirm / cancel after I click print. Perhaps it does that because I have more than one printer installed. Sorry, I can't confirm that for you.

The behavior you describe seems odd, because the dialog I see contains lots of options unrelated to specific printers. What version of MacOS are you running?

 

[DeltaMac]

What would prevent your father from continuing to print everything, even with an intermediate message window? There are printers (usually the higher end models or office models) that have hardware passwords that are required by each user of the printer.

But, the confirm/cancel for printing that Whitehill sees may be an option of some other software, and is not a standard response, even with dozens of printers available to your Mac.
If you have only one printer - why not simply unplug the printer from your Mac, and keep the cable. Just an idea, that may turn out not to be practical.
You could also try hiding the unused paper...

 

[Whitehill]

Attached is the dialog I get from Safari. Mail is similar. I realize each program can have unique print options, but they all share a core set of features.

 

[Dr.Wong]

Thanks for the replies!

@Whitehill : That is the standard print dialogue that pops up for most applications. I'm looking for an additional window that pops up after that one with a final warning. The problem with the window in your screenshot is that he just hits enter and the Mac prints. There needs to be more effort involved like having to enter a password or something.


@DeltaMac : The problem with unplugging the printer is that the printer in question is shared to the whole house via LAN and there are multiple users on my father's iMac who need to print too.

The problem is that he prints without thinking. I think because of the era that he comes from where everything was in hard copy he feels the need to print everything. Hiding the paper is an option, the only problem is that he will still hit "print" even though there is no paper and as soon as someone puts paper in to use the printer, his jobs will resume printing.

I read this article a few moments ago : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2193102?start=0&tstart=0 It might be a mission for the users who are sharing the printer but I think its the best solution for the mean time.

 

[Doctor X]

Seems to me the problem is with your father. You may wish to determine why he does not like to read things off of a screen. Not big enough, not good enough clarity, or maybe he is tormenting you for that time you flushed his bong down the toilet?

--J.D.

 

[Dr.Wong]

Seems to me the problem is with your father. You may wish to determine why he does not like to read things off of a screen.

He reads it off the screen, prints it and then leaves it in the printer until the printer tray is full.

 

[Doctor X]

He reads it off the screen, prints it and then leaves it in the printer until the printer tray is full.

'Kaaaaaay . . . not trying to be a smart-ass--for once--but why does he print something after he has read it of a screen?

For the most part, it takes a few steps to print anything. Why does he do this?

--J.D.

 

[fryke]

I guess I would...

Stage an intervention.

Discuss this with your whole family. Explain why it is a problem for you. He has to understand that it is a problem in order to become part of the solution. Maybe a psychologist can be of help?

If he doesn't get around to see that he's causing problems, I'd find a way to restrict his access to the computer, not only the printer. There might be a way to install a virtual printer that fills a folder with PDFs instead of actually printing. Then a script could erase the folder weekly or daily.