idea Print Preview in Pro in ArcGIS Pro Ideas

Print Preview in Pro

MichaelVolz — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 19:34:38 GMT

I would like the ability to preview a print in Pro before sending it to a printer/plotter.

Re: Print Preview in Pro

LindaKuhn1 — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 14:44:31 GMT

I would also like to see a Print Preview option in ArcGIS Pro.

Re: Print Preview in Pro

rachelg_esri — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 15:03:50 GMT

Hello everyone,

Feel free to also call in and create a support case to be attached to the following internal enhancement:

[ENH-000118063: Create a Print Preview button in ArcGIS Pro]

We look forward to hearing from you!

Rachel

Esri Support Services

Re: Print Preview in Pro

PatrickGrady — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 02:22:41 GMT

Hi Rachel,

Are you serious that we need to call in on this in order to show our level of interest/need for this basic functionality? The challenge is that many of the agencies that us GIS professionals work for are only allocated one POC by Esri. This makes it next to impossible to log calls with Tech Support. Being able to show this interest via an online solution would be much appreciated?

Re: Print Preview in Pro

CalvinHarmin — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 21:31:04 GMT

I would really like this feature. They could even roll out a simplified form initially and then improve it in later versions. Just a simple indication of how the current layout is expected to fit onto your current printer page settings. Also, can't find options for quality of the export when printing, in case you want to do a draft print? There were a bunch of simple but useful options with ArcMap. Once again I'm kind of scratching my head why simple functionality in ArcMap that literally everyone made use of wouldn't be included in Pro, especially since so much effort was put into modernizing/expanding the Layout workflow. I do like that they included options for tile overlap though, that's actually going to be really helpful... but in context it's pretty lackluster when those are literally the only print options available to you, and there's no in-menu description, guide, or tooltip to tell you what exactly it does or how to use it effectively. (I'm using 2.4)

Re: Print Preview in Pro

rachelg_esri — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 14:19:51 GMT

Hello Patrick!

Your post on ArcGIS Ideas will definitely be seen by Development -- you don't need to call in, as you've already posted here! Internal enhancements versus ArcGIS Ideas posts are just two different methods to accomplish the same task - alerting Development that a functionality is requested. The above suggestion is just another option if you'd like to give it another little extra judge on a second source. But they can see this here and see the support it will gain here as well.

If you ever did want to reach out to us regarding the enhancement, you can always do so via a chat session with Support or starting a case via My Esri as well. This would still have to go through your POC, but you wouldn't need to go through the phone lines and that may save some time.

Best regards,

Rachel

Esri Support Services

Re: Print Preview in Pro

AurelieShapiro — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 11:11:38 GMT

my condolences to the trees who have suffered do this problem. I just wasted 50m2 of paper because I can't seem to center my printout on one plot, it prints plots over two pages...

Re: Print Preview in Pro

RobertBorchert — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 21:18:58 GMT

Make PDF

then if you like the pdf send it to the printer

Re: Print Preview in Pro

LesliRawlings — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 00:49:22 GMT

Print preview of the layout is needed in ArcGIS Pro

Re: Print Preview in Pro

cedwards — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 21:30:02 GMT

This is a basic function. How was it ever overlooked?

Just another one of the many things that ArcMap did better.

Re: Print Preview in Pro

KarenStevens — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 18:21:53 GMT

Case submitted but also showing support for this feature here.

Re: Print Preview in Pro

KoryKramer — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 15:18:28 GMT

Hi everyone,

We are interested in gathering specific details and use cases around this request to ensure we fully understand problems encountered by not having a print preview option, as well as to inform design decisions.

If you could please share with us details about problems caused by not having print preview in Pro, that would be helpful. Provide as much detail as possible about your workflow. Since this is often a comparison against an ArcMap workflow, it will be extremely helpful to describe what works well in ArcMap along with screenshots of what you see and what elements of the UI work well for you, along with things that you feel could be improved.

Screenshots and specific details will be very helpful. Thank you in advance for taking your time to work with us on this. If you prefer to not comment publicly, feel free to private message me here on the Community or email kkramer@esri.com.

Thank you in advance for any additional specifics that you can provide. We appreciate your time and feedback on this idea.

Re: Print Preview in Pro

wayfaringrob — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 16:56:05 GMT

@KoryKramerNot ArcMap, but this software came with our plotter and I find it really nice to use. Obviously I have the wrong paper loaded for this print - but it makes it very clear that I do, and even shows me what it would look like if I went ahead and printed with the current settings in a way that's very easy to understand. Maybe something this detailed (with all the driver settings, etc) wouldn't be possible in Pro, but the way this presents the print preview alongside the basic size and scaling settings is nice. Our old plotter didn't have anything like this though, and we did rely on hoping for the best.

This thing in ArcMap was also useful for plots and standard prints:

Re: Print Preview in Pro

KoryKramer — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 16:51:31 GMT

Thanks for the input, Robert, and for sharing an image of what you find to be a helpful design. Do the different tiling views that Pro offers help (these are similar to the screenshot you shared from ArcMap)?

Actual:

Fit to paper size:

Tile oversized:

Re: Print Preview in Pro

wayfaringrob — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 21:23:09 GMT

Hmmm, you know, I hadn't noticed that. I don't often tile, so maybe I was ignoring the "tiling" section thinking it was something different? I do admit I don't use that pane that often, I typically export to PDF in Pro anyway because we like to save/share a digital copy and it does serve as a good "print preview."

Re: Print Preview in Pro

KoryKramer — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 18:38:28 GMT

For those following this thread, we haven't received much response from the request above. To those who have reached out to me directly, THANK YOU!

Another thing (in addition to using the Tiling Preview shown above) that is relevant to this conversation is to ask whether you are using the option to display printer margins on your layouts. Displaying printer margins in Pro was made available after this idea was posted, so we're trying to gauge, given the current functionality of the Tiling preview + printer margins, what are the remaining gaps that an "ArcMap-like" print preview would solve.

Please share your thoughts as comments, or contact me directly at kkramer@esri.com

Thanks

Re: Print Preview in Pro - Status changed to: In Product Plan

AubriOtis — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 01:43:54 GMT

Re: Print Preview in Pro - Status changed to: Implemented

KoryKramer — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 19:52:31 GMT

This Idea has been implemented in ArcGIS Pro 3.2. Specifically, the ability to toggle printer margins on/off, while possible in previous releases of Pro, was added to the Print pane to make previewing the margins more discoverable and easier to work with. We also added the ability to display the tiling lines and numbered pages on the layout page itself. See https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/sharing/overview/print-a-map-or-layout.htm

Please see the What's New documentation for more new features in Pro 3.2.

The Your Ideas in ArcGIS Pro 3.2 blog and video have been posted to the Esri Community blog. You can take a look at these to see your idea and all others that were implemented in this release of ArcGIS Pro.