Organizing Print Presets
Lauren writes,
I love having Print Presets in InDesign so I don’t have to enter all the information every time I print.
The problem is, I have so many and there seems to be no way to put them in any order other than the order I created them in.
Do you know any solutions?
It’s aggravating not being able to drag and drop the Presets (in the File > Print Presets > Define dialog box) in the order that you prefer, such as alphabetically. This is true for all the presets, not just the Print ones. Here are two solutions.
Alphabetizing Print Presets On the Fly
One thing you can do is to use the keyboard shortcut for forcing InDesign menu items to appear in alphabetical order. Hold Command+Option+Shift (Ctrl+Alt+Shift on Windows) while you choose File > Print Presets. This will make all menu items, including the presets, appear in alphabetical order.
Here’s a before-and-after of my Print Presets menu to show how it looks normally (top) and with the keys held down (bottom):
Just select the Print Preset you want from this list and the Print dialog box opens up with that preset active.
Unfortunately the trick doesn’t work with menus in dialog boxes, so you have to remember to do this instead of choosing File > Print (or pressing Command/Ctrl+P).
Save and Reload Presets in the Desired Order
Got an extra twenty minutes or so? You can export and reload your presets so that they appear in any order you desire, in all menu and dialog boxes.
We’ll use my five custom print presets as an example, though this works with any presets in InDesign.
First, open the Preset’s Define dialog box from the File menu, and export each custom preset to the desktop or other convenient location. Just select a preset name in the dialog box, click the Save button, and rename the preset from the default “Saved Presets.prst” filename to the name of the selected preset. It doesn’t have to be an exact match (the actual Preset name is saved inside the .prst file).
Here I’m saving my “Canon draft proofs” preset as “canon draft”:
After you’ve exported each custom preset, Shift-click them all (except [Default]) in the dialog box and click the Delete button.
Now click the Load button and navigate to where you saved your .prst files. Select the one that you want to appear first in the list. InDesign imports that preset and you’ll see its full name appear under the Default preset. Continue Loading the other presets, one-by-one in the order you want them to appear.
Here’s my Print Presets dialog box, after I’ve loaded all my presets in alphabetical order:
This way I don’t have to hold down any special keys and my presets are shown in this order everywhere, including the Print dialog box.
Organizing a List of Presets with Separator Bars
Here’s the Print Preset menu in my Print dialog box. Notice the separator bar?
Here’s how I added it. When I was done loading all my individual presets, I kept the Define dialog box open and added a new preset by clicking the New button. I named it as a series of dashes so it’d look like a separator bar. Since I’d never actually choose this preset — I just wanted the separator bar — I didn’t bother checking the settings for it.
Now when I save more presets they’ll appear below the separator bar. It just helps me to remember “the ones above the line are in alpha order, the ones below the line are not,” making it easier to quickly find the preset that I want.
Originally published August 7, 2007
Very nice workaround Anne-Marie, including that ‘separator bar’ preset.
I’ve managed to keep mine organized as there are only three printers I have to worry about.
Mine are ordered thus:
HP 4MV Letter Portrait
HP 4MV Letter Landscape
HP 4MV Tabloid Spread
HP 8550 Letter Portrait
etc.
From the basics above, I can tweak the presets on demand for different effects. Such as adding printer marks, turning on or off spreads, etc.
It helps knowing, going into this preference, what printers are going to be used most often and in what layout.
-mt
Hi Anne-Marie,
Back in November, I posted a script here:
https://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.3bc19588/5
that will sort Printer presets. It won’t insert a separator though — nice trick. This script will work with both CS2 and CS3. Copy and paste it into a new ExtendScript Toolkit document and save it with a name of your choice in the appropriate folder (Scripts Panel for CS3, Scripts for CS2) and run it by double-clicking its name in the Scripts palette/panel.
Dave
Hi Anne-Marie,
Very nicely done, very nicely done indeed!
Finally, I see a good use for the “super-secret” shortcut. ¡Bravo!
Dave, I tried using the script with CS3, but it doesn’t work for me. Does the script need to be customized at all (ie: do I have to change anything?)
Well, I’m a goof. It works just fine.
But can you delete obsolete print presets?
Kass: Just choose File > Print Presets > Define, select the one you want to remove, and click Delete.
Thank you very much!!!
I’ve followed everything you’ve said here–my problem is much more basic. I have set default to print Composite RGB on my color printer–an HP 1220. In InDesign, even though I’ve set up printer output in Bridge, and even though I’ve made sure the “default” setting is set to Composite RGB, in InDesign CS3 when I pull up the print dialog, the preset pops up as Custom. I even named a preset “Custom,” hoping that that would do the trick, but no luck. A new “Custom” pops up at the head of the drop-down menu, and it’s set to Composite Grayscale. How can I get around this?
@David: I’m not sure what you mean by setting up printer output in Bridge. Are you trying to print from Bridge? Also, are you making your printer preset from the File > Printer Presets menu? Or just from within the Print dialog box. I much prefer setting up the Print dialog box just the way I want it, then clicking the Save Preset button.
David,
According to Adobe, if you want uniform printing results across CS3, you should set up print preferences in Bridge–not that you’re going to print from Bridge, but so that whether you’re working in Illustrator, PhotoShop, InDesign, or any of the other programs, you should have uniform printing results.
Oddly enough, InDesign seems to defy this setting: I have to select “default” every time I print. Instead of defaulting to “default,” InDesign defaults to “Custom,” the chief characteristic of which is that it prints in grayscale. I don’t get it!
I know this is an old post, but it’s still a pretty SWEET trick! Thanks so much for posting the “Permanent But Tedious” workaround. It only took me about 5 minutes to do, and I was able to sort my document presets by the most-used order, and group together pages, portions of pages (to be imposed), and envelope sizes.
Thankyou thankyou thankyou!!! This has been driving me mad for ages!
Instead of a separator I created a file called temp so I could use that between groups that may require a new setting in the future. For example, I have print presets for our restaurant, golf course, admin office, etc with multiple presets under each of these (since each has its own department code for billing).
Here’s a script that you can put in your InDesign scripts folder to sort Print Presets:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/325291
I’ve tested it in InDesign CC 2019 and it still works fine.
Can someone post that script here? The links only take me to forums.
Terry, here’s link to the script SortPrintPresetsAlphabetically
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19xJs5Y09PXzhqfMEZOr1WjfyxdppOViG/view?usp=sharing
taken here https://www.justskins.com/forums/sort-or-rearrange-print-72291.html
Hi Terry,
don’t think so.
The thread with the script’s code was NOT migrated to the new Adobe InDesign Forum. Sigh.
Regards,
Uwe
Terry, here’s link to the script SortPrintPresetsAlphabetically
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19xJs5Y09PXzhqfMEZOr1WjfyxdppOViG/view?usp=sharing
all credits to https://www.justskins.com/forums/sort-or-rearrange-print-72291.html