Print practice: a pretend print window to learn on

The parts of a print window

• Where “Print” is. Some pages have a Print button of their own. Every browser also has one: it is usually in the browser’s menu, which is often three dots or three lines near a top corner. On many keyboards, holding the Ctrl key and pressing P opens the same window; on some computers it is the Command key and P. On a phone, Print is often inside “Share”.
• The print window opens over the page. Nothing prints when it opens. It usually shows a small picture of how the paper would look, and the choices next to it.
• The printer (some windows call it “Destination”) is a list of the places the page can go. A computer can know several printers, and the one the list shows may not be the one near you. In a library or an office, a sign or a staff member can usually tell you the name of the printer to pick.
• “Save as PDF” is often a line of that same list. It makes a file in place of paper. A PDF is a kind of file that usually looks the same on any device; it can be printed later, or added to an email. If the list was left on it, clicking the button makes a file and no paper comes out.
• Pages. A window usually prints every page unless told otherwise. Many windows have a box for the pages you want: one number, like 2, for that page alone, or two numbers with a short line, like 1-2, for both and the pages between.
• Copies is how many times the whole thing is printed. Two copies of three pages are six sheets.
• Color, or black and white. At many libraries and copy shops a sheet in color costs more than one in black and white, and a sign near the printer usually gives the prices. Some windows call black and white “grayscale”.
• Tall or wide. “Portrait” is paper standing tall; “landscape” is paper turned on its side. A wide table often fits better on paper turned wide.
• Both sides. Some printers can print on both sides of a sheet, and some cannot. The choice may be called “two-sided” or “duplex”. Three pages on both sides are two sheets.
• “Cancel” closes the window and prints nothing. It is always allowed.
• After “Print” the window closes and the page is on its way. A printer can take a moment to start. In some libraries the paper does not come out until you go to a print station, find your job there, and pay or tap a card.
• If nothing comes out, the name of the printer is the first thing to look at. Clicking “Print” a second time often sends a second copy, which may cost a second time, so asking a staff member first can save paper.
• On a shared printer, a printed sheet sits where anyone can read it until it is picked up. A file saved on a shared computer can stay there after you leave; the staff can usually say how saved files are cleared.

How the lessons work

• The pretend page is the light-colored box. The strip at its top shows the address of the pretend page, which ends in .example, a name set aside for examples, which no real site has. The page lists the class times of a town office that does not exist.
• The pretend print window opens inside that box when the button “Print this page” is clicked. It is drawn by this page; your device’s own print window never opens.
• The two pretend printers, “Front desk printer” and “Back room printer”, are names and nothing more. The pretend page is always 3 sheets long.
• The line that begins “As it stands” counts the paper as the window stands, and changes with every choice. Reading it before the last button is the habit the lessons are after.
• Only the step at hand answers. The step is written above the pretend page. If something else is clicked, picked or typed, the page says what it was, and the pretend window stays as it was. Nothing can be broken.
• The box or the list the step asks for has a blue edge, and what to type or pick is written once more right under it. A box is done the moment it holds what the step asks for. A file name forgives capital letters.
• Lesson 2 opens with the list of printers left on “Save as a file (PDF)”, as a real window sometimes is. Lesson 7 picks that line on purpose, and the button at the foot changes from “Print” to “Save”.
• The page waits. There is no countdown, and taking a long time costs nothing. At the end it says what the pretend window was asked for, how many sheets that comes to, how long the lesson took, from the first time the pointer went into the pretend page, and how many times something else was clicked, picked or typed.
• “Start this lesson again” picks another printer, other pages and another file name.

Every time the page is built, a program makes 32,000 lessons, half in English and half in Spanish, and walks through their 136,000 steps on a pretend print window of its own, written apart from this page’s: that the thing each step asks for is on the screen when it is asked for, that using it changes something, that the step is said in full, that nothing but the step’s own thing answers, and that the paper is counted the same way by both.

What this page does not do

• It prints nothing. No printer is used, no file is made, and the pretend choices are gone when the lesson ends.
• It does not look like every print window. Real ones differ from one browser, one program and one printer to the next: the words, the order and the number of choices change, and many hide some choices under “More settings”.
• It does not teach paper size, margins, making the print larger or smaller, loading paper, a paper jam, scanning, copying, printing from a phone, or paying at a print station.
• It does not count paper the way every printer does. On a real page, turning the paper wide or picking other pages can change how many sheets come out; here the pretend page is always 3 sheets long.
• It cannot tell you what a sheet costs or which printer to pick in any real place. The people who run the printer are the ones to ask.
• It is not practice for the hand: Mouse and trackpad practice and Typing practice are.
• It does not keep your times or which lessons you have done, gives no certificate and makes no promise about how fast anyone will learn.
• It can be worked by keyboard (Tab, Enter, the space bar and the arrow keys in a list), but it has not been tried with a screen reader, a switch or an eye tracker.