How to Show Expanded Print Details Dialog on Mac

This article will show you how to Show Expanded Print Details Dialog on Mac. Even though many of us still want the “paperless office” dream to come true, there are times when you have to have a hard copy of a document. For some background, when you go to print a document, you usually have to click the “Show Details” button if you want to see more printing choices like paper orientation and paper size.

But with a little command line magic, you can make the expanded print dialogue window the usual setting in MacOS so you don’t have to click “Show Details” every time you print a document to make changes. The expanded Print dialogue window in Mac OS shows many more print details and configuration options for printing documents.

These include specific page counts, the page and paper print orientation, paper size, preset setting options, printing double-sided, printing borders, whether to print the header and footer of a file, whether to print in black and white or use color ink cartridges, and much more, depending on the document and the app doing the printing.

How to Show Expanded Print Details Dialog on Mac

For many Mac users, it’s enough to just click the “Show Details” button when they need to print something once in a while. For people who print a lot or who often need to do special print jobs, such as moving paper trays, printing thumbnails, etc., having the expanded Print Details dialogue show up every time can be a helpful shortcut.

We use a command-line word in the Terminal app to turn on the dialogue box. Note that if you are not familiar with Terminal, you may want to just click the Show Details button every time or have someone who is familiar with Terminal set this up for you. If you want to know more information about this Visit Official Apple Support site.

• Launch the Terminal app, which is located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder. You can also invoke Spotlight by pressing Command – Space, then enter Terminal to launch the app.
• Enter the following command string exactly as typed here:

defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool TRUE

• Press Return to enter the command. There is no confirmation that the command has been entered.
• Now whenever the Print command is invoked in any app on the Mac, the expanded Print Details dialog appears.

Disabling the Expanded Print Details Dialog

• Launch Terminal
• Enter the following command at the prompt:

defaults write -g PMPrintingExpandedStateForPrint -bool FALSE

• Press Return to enter the command. Once again, there is no confirmation, but the standard Print dialog screen is now the default.

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