Firefox 86 released for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms and is available for download. Mozilla boasts the new version comes with total cookie protection aka State partitioning that protects users from cookies that track you from site to site. In addition to this and multiple PiP feature, Firefox comes with a new design for Print Preview.
What you need to know:
- Firefox 86 comes with a new Print Interface similar to Chrome
- Mozilla made it easy to get to the current page print Preview with Ctrl+P shortcut. Earlier, you need to select the Print option in the menu for that.
- The new UI lacks Simplify Page option
- You may also miss the “Margins & Header Footer” options used to present in the Page Setup of the old UI.
- In the release notes, Mozilla states “we’ve improved our print functionality (in Firefox) with a cleaner design and better integration with your computer’s printer settings”
If you want to print something to your printer, you may want to save some ink as well as papers by using the Simplify option offered on Print Preview Page.
Selecting the option removes navigation menus and unnecessary elements such as text or ads on the sidebar.
Note: Reader mode also does this, but it may not be supported on all pages that you want to print.
So, there are obviously Pros and cons with Firefox’s new Print User Interface.
If you’ve more compelling reasons to dislike the new UI, you can disable it and get back to old or classic Print UI in Firefox by following the steps given below.
Disable the new Print UI in Firefox 86 or newer versions
- Launch Firefox browser
- Visit about: config in the address bar
- Click on Accept Risk and continue
- type tab_mo in the Search box
- Click on toggle icon to change print.
tab_modal. enabled pref value from true to false
That’s it! You’ve restored the Classic Print experience in Firefox.
What’s your take on Firefox’s new Print dialog in version 86? Have you liked it? Let us know in the comments below.
More on Firefox:
How to disable Firefox’s Tab to Search
Mozilla to fix Firefox freezing issue on Startup w/ 85.0.2
Firefox 87 to allow seeing only modified preferences on about: config
Firefox’s Menu and New Tab Page getting a makeover for new design
The previous Print Preview was fine. Simplify page was the best aspect of it. Why fix it if it’s not broken!!
I agree 100%!
Because big software companies can’t resist pushing stupid BS on people because some focus group likes it. MS’s switch to the ribbon I/F was the worst example of this.
I do not like the new print interface at all. It is shrunk the preview (I am older, so smaller is NOT better). I can’t give a range of pages to print, I really miss the Simplify Page option, and many other controls. One of the reasons I use Firefox instead of Chrome is its superior printing control. Chrome was highly deficient in this area. I don’t think trying to emulate Chrome is a good idea.
I really don’t understand what should be the improvement of omitting some of the basic controls like:
-the header and footer setting (sometimes I wanted no header, sometimes only page numbering, sometimes I wanted the URL to be printed… ).
-select page range to be printed
-why the hell is the page margin now only displayed in inches instead of cm (i respect they have some other unit system in some parts of the world, but its not much programming effort to introduce also SI units, particularly if there is already a combo-box for selection page margin settings…)
The only advantage I found is the option of directly saving into PDF. But the output PDF is without hypertext links, so the same effect can be reached with apps like „PDF creator“ which most of the people already have installed.
So overall, I found this change a huge leap back, so I am really glad that I found this webpage with a tutorial how to revert the change and get the old UI i have been used to for many years.
Thank you for this article!
This new print interface has broken my double sided-printing. The back side now prints upside down.
TYVM – i could not get the scale option for printing making it very inconvenient for me. your tab_mo solution worked wonderfully.
If you want to revert to your printer’s interface…
after typing in “about:config”, ( THERE IS NO SPACE AFTER THE COLON!), type tab_mo in the Search box and change all the values to false…there should be four values.
Thanks so much! That new printer interface as most so called ‘improvements’ are a huge step backwards. In the attempt to make the interface ‘simpler looking’, they made it more tedious to change settings such as selecting which pages you want to print. Before you simply typed in the page range you wanted right on the first page, but this new interface you have to first click on custom, and only then can you select the pages you want. Generating extra clicks is not ‘simplifying’. I wish more web designers understood this.