if you’re reading this post, you’re likely fed up with Chrome hi-jacking your printing experience on OS X. Personally, every time I “print” something from Chrome, I want to use the OS X interface. That’s because I very rarely print to a physical printer. Instead, I use the PDF menu to save the page I am looking at into an application for such things (Devonthink, in my case).
If you only want to use the OS X system print interface from time-to-time, the easiest way is possibly to just select Option-Command-P on the keyboard. If, like me, you want to default to the system print interface, here’s how.
You can force Chrome to use the default OS X print window with an easy Terminal command.
- First, quit Chrome completely, including any open Chrome apps.
- Launch Terminal. Just hit Command-Space to bring up Spotlight, and type in “Terminal”.
- In Terminal, enter the following command and press Return on your keyboard:
defaults write com.google.Chrome DisablePrintPreview -bool true
There will be no confirmation or feedback from Terminal. So long as you copy/pasted (or typed in) the command correctly, you’re all set.
Close terminal, and reopen Chrome. Hit Command-P and see if it worked.
You are AWESOME. Thirty minutes of trying everything and this tip worked like a charm. Thank you.
Thanks Brenda. I’m glad this tip helped. Such a time-waster trying to get around it, without knowing this “secret” trick! Enjoy.
If for some odd reason I wanted to turn it back on, would I use “EnablePrintPreview” or “_-boot false”?
Yes, you change “false” with “true”. Although please note is it `bool` (with an ‘l’) as opposed to `boot` (with a ‘t’).
Thanks – simple, quick tip that does the business.