To print your timeline, choose . This starts the standard Mac printing dialog, with some TimeStory-specific additions.
(The Mac printing system also supports printing to PDF, but most of the time, you’ll want to use TimeStory’s PDF export function, as it produces a single-page PDF that keeps your timeline together.)
Configuring Print Size
A TimeStory document is often much wider and taller than a single page. By default, TimeStory will break your document into as many pages as needed, but you can adjust this to your needs using the following options.
- Print at percentage% of default size: The default of 100% is TimeStory’s default print sizing. Increase or decrease this percentage to magnify or shrink the entire document.
- Fit to width page(s) wide by height page(s) tall: This will shrink your document as needed to fit within the given number of pages. You can also choose to leave one of the two fields empty, if you just need the timeline to fit along one axis.
- Adjust time scale independently of vertical size, to fit better: If this is not checked, then page fitting occurs by scaling your timeline equally both horizontally and vertically, and without changing the time scale. If this is checked, then the document is first zoomed down to fit vertically, then its time units and scale are automatically adjusted to be as readable as possible horizontally. This option is very useful when you have a very long (in time) but narrow (in height) document to print.
As you edit these values, the preview in the Print dialog will automatically refresh, letting you see the effects of your change.
Configuring Margins
Use the Include page margins checkbox to enable or disable a fixed margin around your timeline. (The printer driver will normally enforce a small border area, required by the printer itself, regardless of this setting.)
Configuring Backgrounds & Gridlines
When viewing a TimeStory document on screen, background colors and grid lines often look nice and add context; when printing, however, these can waste ink and reduce contrast.
Use the Include background and Include gridlines options to enable or disable these features in your printed output. If enabled, the colors and gridlines use the same settings as used on screen.
Note that “background” colors include both the document-level color and any per-section background colors.