Cannot print drafts or sent messages

Cannot print drafts or sent messages

I cannot print a draft I am working on, before I finalize it, and I cannot print messages I have sent. Nothing happens if I press Ctrl + P, and if I try to access the Print command from the File menu, I find it is dimmed out, i.e., not available.

Is this a bug or by design? I cannot be the only user who would want to review on paper a draft before sending or print a message already sent.

I am running Opera 10.10 on Windows XP SP3 (because of all the bugs in the mail client in 10.50 and 10.51).

If you want to print the draft message, go to the DRAFTS folder and select your message. (Should be at the top of the pile). You will then find you can print it from there.

The same with the SENT messages.

Opera email printing seems to be designed to work from the ListViews and not the Editing Windows.

Does not work for me. I cannot print drafts or sent messages from the message window, and I cannot print from the DRAFT or SENT view.

What version of Opera do you use?

I am using the same version as you - 10.10 because I am also avoiding the mail attachment bugs.

I am running on Vista Business 64-bit - which should not make any difference when comparing with XPSP3

When I saw your report, I performed these exact actions

• I hit COMPOSE to start a new email.
• Went to the FILE menu and noted the greyed out PRINT option.
• I then looked into the MAIL PANEL at the side of the Opera Window and selected the DRAFTS folder.
• I could now see the various drafts I have stored in my mailstore.
• At the top of this list was my new message.
• I highlighted it from there with a single click, leaving the list view on screen
• I then went to the FILE \ PRINT menu and printed.

NOTICE - I did not OPEN the email in the drafts folder. Just selected it enough so it appeared in the QuickView window at the lower half of the screen.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Yes, I did exactly what you did, and the print command is dimmed for me in the File menu. Maybe it's a bug that only affects XP.

I hope someone else using XP will post whether they can print drafts or sent messages as you describe.

BTW I think they finally fixed the mail attachment bugs in the official release of 10.51, but I think it still omits portions of messages when you print them on paper and time-stamps incoming and outgoing messages an hour earlier or later than the actual time.

Originally posted by chileverde:

Thanks for the detailed reply. Yes, I did exactly what you did, and the print command is dimmed for me in the File menu. Maybe it's a bug that only affects XP.

Are you using the Opera standard menu. Ctrl + F12 -> Advanced -> toolbars

Under menu the only option shown is Opera Standard. I have not modified it at all.

I don't have this problem (on WinXP), so not sure. But, are you making sure your printer is on before you start Opera. Can you print web pages in Opera.?

You can close down Opera and delete the temporary_downloads and cache folders. See About -> Opera for that. (This fix shouldn't be needed for 10.10, but give it a try anyway)

You can go to opera:config#consistency , set it 0, save and restart Opera.

you said you're using the Opera standard menu. Try switching to the Opera standard toolbar to see if it changes anything.

Are you using the Opera standard skin?

Is this with every single message in All Messages/Drafts and All Messages/Sent?

Are you viewing the message in view mode (instead of edit mode) and left-clicking on the body to focus it (shouldn't really be necessary, but, try it anyway) before trying to print.

If Opera's using the Opera Standard menu, you can view c:\program files\opera\ui\standard_menu.ini with a text editor and examine the print menu commands. You can compare them to the one that comes in the 10.10 classic installer. Just extract the installer's contents with winrar or 7-zip to a folder to get to the menu ini file. In fact, you could use it to replace the one in Opera's program files folder just in case it's corrupted.

I do not have time to try these suggestions now (I do appreciate them), but for now I would add the following:

I am using 10.10 on two different computers by two different manufacturers. One runs XP Pro, and the other XP Home. Both have this problem. In addition, both will not print messages from ANY view, not just the sent view. However, they will print received messages from the message window.

These were clean installs.

Yes I can print web pages. I think that probably sometimes printer is on and sometimes not when I start Opera, but I don't think that should make a difference. I print from many Windows programs and sometimes turn on printer just before printing—no problem.

Using Opera standard skin.

Yes, cannot print any draft or saved message, whether from message window or view list.

Probably not worth spending hours on this. Already spent hours previously struggling with other mail bugs in Opera, to the detriment of other work. Maybe it's better to drop this matter. I can always copy and paste to Word.

The more I think about it, seems likely some other program I use on both computers may be affective Opera, as I started with clean installs, and both computers are connected to different printers.

I downloaded 10.10 directly to each computer, so doubt they are both corrupted, unless by another program (ccleaner?).

One reason I posted was to see if others have this problem with XP. You say you can print sent messages from Sent view, but not from message window, so my problem seems unique to my systems. Not worth reporting as a bug.

PROBLEM SOLVED

This is bizarre.

After I posted the above, I re-read your post, Burnout, and realized that when I referred to Sent view, I meant a list, but you talked about clicking on the body of the message in Sent view. Made no sense to me...until I remembered I could change Display from List only to List and Message Below. I did that and all of a sudden I could print the sent message. Then I changed Display back to List only AND I CAN STILL PRINT MESSAGES! I wrote a test draft and can print from the Drafts view (List only). This is the second computer. I will check the first computer tomorrow.

Thank you...you pointed me in the direction which led to a solution.

Actually, I find now that it is more complicated. Having switched from Display List Only to Display List with Message Below and back to Display List Only, the Print and Print Preview commands are no longer dimmed. However, when I print from a view displaying List Only, I get either a sheet with "No Message Selected" or the LAST message I printed. It seems that printing from a view, whether Unread, Drafts, of Sent, works properly ONLY in the mode of Display List with Message Below (have not tried with message to right) and does NOT work with Display List Only. Can anyone reproduce this?

I think you have a bug report to put in there. Link to this thread as well as give a verbose description.

For me, View / Display / List Only still allows me to print okay. So does having the message on the right. It is only when I Double Click the message to open it does the print option not operate.

I still cannot reproduce your bug when working with the ListViews. Do you have any other customisations in place there?


At the very least, I see no reason why the PRINT options are missing when double clicking and viewing a Sent or Draft message. That surely is a bug. The print option is there on any other message that is displayed.

I have reported this as bug DSK-294483.

When you have list only set up. Are you actually double-left-clicking on the entry in the message list and focusing the message before trying to print?

If you're using "list only", select an entry in the message list and try to print it, "print" will indeed be grayed out because the message hasn't been opened.

Hi, Burnout. Please note what Mallen posted above: "Opera email printing seems to be designed to work from the ListViews and not the Editing Windows."

The way I first tried to print was as you described: I am looking at a list (List Only) of messages in the Sent or Drafts view. I double-left-click on a message, which "opens" it in my lingo, which may not be correct. Or focuses on it. Anyway, the contents of the message are now on my screen. Both Print and Print preview are grayed out at this point. If I do this with a message I RECEIVED, I can print O.K.

Apparently, on your system you can print Sent and Draft messages from the editing window with XP?

@chilverde - no - when I was talking about selecting the message in the list view, I mean SINGLE CLICK to just highlight it in the list. Don't double click to open it. Keep the list in sight, and then use the File\Print menu.

It is the "Double Click to Open a draft\sent item in a separate window" that does not allow you to print.

Printing works from the list. (There is a quick preview at the bottom of the page that should allow you to check which message you are printing out)

Mallen, I understood you completely. I was trying to explain your point to Burnout, who seemed to advise that I needed to DOUBLE-CLICK. He says he can open Sent messages and print them from the "editing" window, which I cannot do and evidently you cannot do either.

Chileverde - this is all getting too confusing for my little head... I need more caffeine. I can now see how Burnout is getting confused

Originally posted by chileverde:

Hi, Burnout. Please note what Mallen posted above: "Opera email printing seems to be designed to work from the ListViews and not the Editing Windows."

I understand. I just forgot that double-left-clicking a message list entry for a sent/draft message doesn't open the message in normal view and instead opens it in edit mode. What I was talking about was in regards to a message in All Messages/Received where if you show 'list only', just select the entry in the message list (single-click/hightight it), and try to print, it won't work because the message isn't open. That is the same reason why printing a message in edit mode doesn't work -- because the message isn't open.

If you want to print a sent message, you actually have to open it in regular mode. To do that, you have to modify the ENTER keyboard shortcut for ENTER in mail. By default, it's "Edit | Open in message view". If you remove the "Edit | ", then when you press enter on an entry in the sent message list, it'll actually open the message. If you then want to instead actually edit the message, you can right-click on it and choose "edit". Unfortunately, there's no way to edit the double-left-click action to open in message view instead of editing, so you have to use ENTER with a modifed action. Tool -> preferences -> advanced -> shortcuts -> Opera standard -> edit

As for list and message below. That should work fine even for sent messages as the messages are actually open. And, this works fine for me.

PROBLEM/MYSTERY SOLVED!

O.K., Burnout, we've finally solved the problem. Thank you for revealing the mystery.

In case anyone else wants to do this, let me specify that you need to work on keyboard shortcuts under Mail Window. (There is also a group of shortcuts under Mail Panel: that's not the one.)

I decided I would leave Opera's default Enter shortcut intact and add a new one for Enter Shift, which I defined as Open in Message Window.

So, finally, in the Sent view, I can click once on a message I wish to print, then press Shift + Enter to open it in a Message Window, rather than in an Edit Window. Now I can print it!!

I can also print a draft in progress. Say I am composing a new message. I get to a point where I would like to read it on paper. I press Ctrl + S to save it, which creates a draft of it. Now, while leaving the Compose/Edit Window (actually a Tab) open, I click on Drafts, which brings into focus the Drafts view in a different tab. I single-click on the draft message I wish to print, press Shift + Enter to open it in a Message Window (Tab), and print it. I press Ctrl + W to close my draft in the Message Window and click on the tab for the Compose/Edit window in which I was originally composing it. I can now make changes and continue composing the message.

COMMENT: I am glad the issue is resolved. While I guess it really is not a bug, it is a huge shortcoming of Opera that a user should have to spend literally hours to figure this out. Most people who are checking out the possibility of using Opera as their e-mail client will find that they cannot print drafts or sent messages and just conclude, "This program is not for me," and then move on to some other e-mail client. This is too bad, because Opera is really a great program. But in this respect it is really user-unfriendly. I had a similar problem when I first started using the Opera e-mail client. I would drag sent messages into filters (which had been created when I imported my messages from Thunderbird). But I could not see them in the filters! I asked in this forum and learned that I had to click View | Show | Show Sent. How many people would figure this out? Unfortunately, Opera has no User's Manual where one could look up these things. I am very grateful to others on this forum who somehow know these details. But the average user will just give up on Opera. I still have a problem in that I must have around 100 filters, and I must reconfigure all of them for Show Sent. I do not understand why the developers have the default configuration for new filters with Show Sent disabled.

Originally posted by chileverde:

While I guess it really is not a bug, it is a huge shortcoming of Opera that a user should have to spend literally hours to figure this out.

I totally agree. I hate the way it is. Sent and Draft messages shouldn't open in edit mode by default. And, the fact that there's no way to edit the double-left-lick action and you can only work around it via a keyboard shortcut or right-click context menu item, sucks.

This all basically comes down to the "list only" view in Opera is not a first-class citizen. When you use "list only", quite a view things break. If you stick to "list and message below" and only read the message in the preview below, you won't have this problem. But, then you'll have a different set of problems that are solved by using "list only".

I get very irritated about this myself and just access my account with SquirrelMail when I need to view sent messages.