Print selection on a Mac

12 August 2014, 03:02


Unbelievably, Mac OS X offers no “print selection” option. There’s no way to highlight some text on a page and then print only that, rather than the whole thing.

Here’s the solution.

  1. Download Print Selection Service. It’s free of charge, courtesy of Schubert IT.
  2. Install it and reboot. This is important.
  3. Open System Preferences and click the Keyboard icon.
  4. Click the Shortcuts tab and then the Services entry in the list on the left.
  5. Put a tick alongside Print Selection.

From now on, simply select the text you want to print, right click the selection, select the Services submenu, and select Print Selection. On some Macs the “Print Selection” entry might simply appear on the menu that appears when you right click. Alternatively, you may be able to tap Shift+Cmd+T to print the selection, which you’ll probably need to do in apps like Microsoft Word that don’t show Service entries on the right-click menu.

Know better?

Thanks for this. Had tried a few others with very limited success but this one works nicely.

Would love a service that let me highlight text on a page and then simply click Print instead of going through the services menu – but this will do for now.

— Michael Quinn · Mar 20, 05:59 PM · #

Where on this page do I find the download button please? I can’t believe Mac won’t allow me to print a selection and I’d really like to have this app.

— Sally · Apr 14, 05:14 PM · #

Sally, I’ve fixed the article. Here’s a fresh download link:

http://download.cnet.com/Print-Selection-Service/3000-2072_4-51675.html

— Keir Thomas · Apr 15, 12:53 AM · #

 
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