Tip 820: Printing Contacts on one page

Older versions of Outlook had an option that allowed you to print multiple items on one page in a continuous fashion. This allowed you to save paper while printing the complete items.

The option to do continuous printing was removed from Outlook 2007 and 2010 and the Memo style forces each item on a separate sheet of paper

To reduce the amount of paper used, you can choose the 8.5×11 half, 1/2 or 1/4 sheet booklet paper options (in Page Setup). It’s not quite the same if you have a lot of short items, since only 2 or 4 items will print per page, but its less wasteful. For best results, set the page margins to the minimum used by your printer. (There is an 8 page booklet option – but it uses more paper than the 1/2 or 1/4 page options.)

Other options include printing in Card style (create a view showing the fields you want included in the printout) or using a table view (list view) with the 3 line preview enabled. Either method works well if you only need to see the first few lines of text as you are limited to the first 255 characters in the Notes field (first 3 lines and 255 characters if using the Table style).

You can also use your printer’s option for 2-up or 4-up printing, which prints 2 to 4 pages per sheet of paper. (This method shrinks the page, so the text is much smaller – 1/2 sheet in Outlook’s settings and 2-up in the printer settings results in a good combination of “small but readable” pages.)

Print utilities (listed at Print Email (and Attachments) on Arrival) may do a better job.

Note: this tip applies to all Outlook items, not just Contacts. To print non-Contact items using the Card view, create a new custom view and select Card style. Add the fields you want to include in the printout and apply.

Published January 13, 2011. Last updated on September 17, 2011.