Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition

Selecting Icons

To highlight a single icon in preparation for printing, opening, duplicating, or deleting, click the icon once. Both the icon and the name darken in a uniquely OS Xish way.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION: Printing a Window—or a List of Files

In Mac OS 9, I could print a Finder window. I’d get a neat list of the files, which I could use as a label for a CD I was going to burn, or whatever. How do I print a Finder window in OS X? (The File→Print command prints a selected document, not the list of files in a window.)

It’s easy enough to make a list of files for printing. Once the window is open on your screen, choose Edit→Select All. Choose Edit→Copy. Now switch to a word processor and paste. (If you’re using TextEdit, use Edit→Paste and Match Style instead.) You get a tidy list of all the files in that window, ready to format and print.

This simple file name list isn’t the same as printing a window; you don’t get the status bar showing how many items are on the disk and how full the disk is. For that purpose, you can always make a screenshot of the window (SnagIt (Screenshots)) and print that. Of course, that technique is no good if the list of files is taller than the window itself.

Really, what you want is Print Window, a handy shareware program dedicated to printing your Finder windows, without these workarounds and limitations. You can download it from this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.

That much may seem obvious. But most first-time Mac users have no ...