Print selection preview Click to see a larger image

I got an email this week from a reader asking if there was a way to print just the selected text of a document. To be honest, this isn't something I've ever needed to do before, but with a bit of research I was able to figure it out.

Here is the email:

I cannot find a way where I can select (highlight) a portion of text from an email or Web site and then be able to tell my printer to print only the highlighted text. My only way around this is to copy the portion of text, paste it into TextEdit, and then print. Is there a way to print selected text without doing a copy and paste?<

Mac OS X has a feature called Services that allows people to add functionality to (almost) all applications. There is a Service called "Print Selection Service" that does exactly what we need. You can download it here.

Print Selection will download to your Downloads folder or Desktop. Double click it to start the installer. The installer requires that you quit all open applications first. At the end of the installation, you are logged out of your user account and will have log back in.

Once you are logged back into your account, you can select some text and then right-click on it. A new option will appear at or near the bottom of the pop up menu: Print Selection. Choosing that option will open a preview window to show you how the printing will look. From there, click the Print button.

In my testing, selecting blocks of text generally worked well. Selecting text in Safari had mixed results.

NOTE 1: Not all applications support Services. Firefox is one of them.

NOTE 2: After I installed Print Selection, it wasn't active. I had to turn it on by going to Services Preferences (Choose Services Preferences… under the Services menu item in the {Application name} item in the Menu Bar.)

Related Items: Services