FinePrint6 tutorial

Install FinePrint as you would any software: download the appropriate FinePrint.exe file from our downloads page and double click on it to install it.

To start FinePrint; send something to print from one of your programs such as Word or Internet Explorer. Select FinePrint which will appear in your list of available printers.  You will now see a preview of your document. Using this preview you can select how you want to print the document. A list of the options is given below.

Important general information 

Changes made when FinePrint is open are generally applicable to the documents you are currently printing. If you want changes to "stick" you should make them through Control Panel and Printers. Right mouse click on FinePrint and select "Printing Preferences". One important change to consider making is to change the default paper size from Letter to A4. The status bar along the bottom edge of the FinePrint window will show the paper size and paper saved statistics. If this is not showing go into Settings (see below) and tick "Show status".

Layout tab

• 1 up to 8 pages on a single side of paper. The Bypass skips all of FinePrint's formatting. Useful for printing photos and printed copies of Powerpoint type presentations.
• Booklet layout. This is simple to achieve with FinePrint but can be difficult to achieve from many programs and printers as the page order needs changing to allow you to fold the pages in half while maintaining the normal reading order of the pages. Reduces paper consumption by 75% compared to single sided printing and is much easier to handle, store and post. Ink consumption is also reduced as the text is smaller whilst still perfectly legible.
•  Letterhead overlays a saved page, often a letterhead. You can create any overlays you wish by simply saving the page showing in the preview as a letterhead. Detailed instructions are given here.
• Stamps. Unlike Letterhead a Stamp is not saved information but information you type in when you want it or that is generated automaticaly by selecting an option. Typical Stamps are date, time or page numbers created automatically, or text such as "Embargoed until 1st of January 2010" which you would type in.
• Borders puts a thin line around the edge of the page.
• Margins varies the margins around all sides of the page. You can choose none, small, medium or large. Original maintains the original margins.
• Binding automatically orientates the pages for the binding you will use. For example if you want a tent shaped calendar with printing on both sides of the paper or a desktop flip chart.
• Separate jobs. This inserts blank pages to ensure new jobs start on a right page. It only appears if you have more than one job.
• Gutters lets you specify a space to allow for binding.
  
• Double sided printing, even on a non duplex printer. FinePrint automatically revises the page order to allow this to work. Halves paper consumption and makes documents easier to handle and more professional looking.

Jobs tab

You can send separate documents to FinePrint (while FinePrint is open) and they are stored as separate jobs. Adding multiple jobs is useful as the jobs can be printed as a single document with the same overlayed headers or with new page numbering throughout. The Jobs tab lists the jobs and you can change the order they are printed by dragging them up/down the list or Right Mouse Clicking and selcting Up or Down. Jobs can be deleted and reinstated so you can easily print a report with and without some of its sections.

Letterhead Tab

Any page showing in the preview can be saved as a future overlay by  clicking the "Create using current job " button. You can specify to apply it to the first page or the default is all pages. Note that the first page of the current job is used as the overlay.

Stamps Tab 

Choose from a number of predefined stamps or type your own words into the text window. Click on the "Insert Variable" button to choose from a list of predefined variables. These control both the content and positioning. For example page x of y inserts page numbers in the format page 5 of 25 and the position is set with <centre><left><booket inside left> etc. You can enter more than one line by selecting the "New Line" variable. There are three predefined positions: Header, Footer and Watermark. There are options to specify putting the Stamp on sheet 1 or starting from sheet ...

Bates numbering is a system used to uniquely identify pages. It is an accepted system for legal documents in some countries. A specific number of places is reserved with leading zeros. 

You can combine text and page numbering. For example if you sent a number of jobs and each represented a section in a report then by entering <job name> Page you would get the page number prefixed by the appropriate section name.

Miscellaneous 

Right mouse clicking either on the preview of a page or on an option in a menu gives you appropriate further options.

Right mouse click on a page to: 

• Print the page, the sheet or the job
• Delete the page or the job. You can undelete if you tick "show deleted jobs"
• Cut the page. The Paste option is then also available
• Copy the sheet to the clipboard in a range of formats
• Insert blank page. Note that if you have more than one job a new option appears called "Separate jobs". This adds a blank page when necessary to ensure jobs begin on a right page.

The settings icon gives you access to settings such as:

• where copies of the most recent FinePrint jobs are saved automatically
• selection of sub-booklets to allow booklets to be stapled in sections where the total number of sheets would be too many
• Create new FinePrint printer. You can create as many as you wish and they can have unique names that describe their settings. For example you can have one set up to always add a particular department letterhead or always print date and page numbers. This will save you having to make these changes to a general FinePrint printer.

 The left button sends the document(s) to the printer described in the "Nickname" (Lexmark Optra S 1855 PS in our example) window and leaves finePrint open. The right hand icon sends the document to print and then closes Fineprint.