Mac users: One little tweak in your System Preferences could save you lots of time, and possibly reduce the number of wasted prints:

In the Print & Fax Preference pane, you can click on the Default Printer popup menu to control which printer appears each time you choose File> Print — it can either be the Last Printer Used, or always a particular printer.

You can also specify which paper size you want to appear by default in your Print dialogs, by clicking on the Default Paper Size popup menu.

For extra points:

Click the Options & Supplies button to open your printer’s setup utility to check ink levels, clean its heads, etc.

Click the Share This Printer button to share any printer with other computers on your network. That’s useful if you have a non-networked printer attached to your Mac and want to share it with others — including any scanning and faxing capabilities it may have.

If your printer can scan or fax, you can access those features from the Scan tab:

Jay Nelson

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.