How Do I Print the Contents of a Folder?

Those of us who remember the days before OS X recall how easy it was to print a Finder window. It was as simple as a menu command. Ever since OS X came along, there hasn't been that easy one step process to print out the contents of the window and it's missed.

The good news it that it isn't hard to do; it's just not obvious. In fact it's as easy 5 or so quick commands. You could probably do them all from your keyboard in 10 seconds if you had it down.

Here's What to Do
Capture the window image by using the key combination cmd-shift-4, then hit the space bar to toggle to window mode. This changes the mouse arrow cursor to a camera icon. While holding down control, click your mouse on the window you want to capture. Holding down control tells your Mac to copy the image to your clipboard rather than making a file of it. Next, change apps to Preview and select New From Clipboard or cmd-N. This will create a new file with your window image as the contents. Now all you need to do is select Print or cmd-P and go for it.

So for you keyboard shortcut folks out there, it goes: cmd-shift-4, space bar, control-click window, click Preview (or cmd-tab to it), cmd-N, cmd-P, Enter. OK, so it's not simple, but it is easy.

For those of you that like to keep a printer in your dock or on your desktop, it can be shorter. Just cmd-shift-4, space bar, click the window without holding control. That creates a file on your desktop called Picture 1 or something like it. Now just drag that file onto your printer icon and it should print.

Boy, do I miss having it in the Finder menus.

So you say you want more control than that? Well, there is an app called Print Window by Searchware Solutions. They have a free and Pro version ($20) for you that will give you lots of options.

So Why Would I Want to Do This, Anyway?
I find that the main reason to print the contents of a window is to create a CD/DVD insert when writing files to an optical disk. For me, I don't have to pop it into my Mac to remember what's on it and it's just good form when sending files to someone else on an optical disk.

Print Window Tips
If I have more than 4 items in the folder, I get the window in List View. That's the horizontal line icon on tool bar. Then I drag in the columns so they can all be viewed easily. When I have 4 or less items, I do Icon View and enlarge the icons to the max. You can also turn on the Show Item Info in the View Options box to get extra data in Icon View. Either way, I always click the top right button to toggle off the Side Bar and Tool Bar so all I see is the contents and title.

Do you have any tips to share or questions to ask? Let us know in the Comments section below!

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