Printable View
A Printable View is a Salesforce feature that renders a simplified, print-friendly version of a record, list view, or report.
Definition
A Printable View is a Salesforce feature that renders a simplified, print-friendly version of a record, list view, or report. It removes the navigation bar, sidebars, action buttons, and other interactive parts of the application so the content can be sent cleanly to a printer or saved to paper or PDF through the browser.
The same idea shows up in several places under the same name. Records expose it as a page-layout action, reports expose it on the report run page in Salesforce Classic, and Lightning list views expose it through a printer icon. Each one opens a stripped-down page that is easier to read on paper than the full app screen.
Where Printable View shows up across Salesforce
What the printable layout keeps and what it drops
The job of a Printable View is to strip away everything that only makes sense on a screen. The global header, the navigation menu, the related-list hover links, the inline edit pencils, and the action buttons all disappear. What remains is the data itself, laid out in plain sections that flow down the page so a browser can paginate it for a printer. On a record, the printable layout follows the same section structure as the detail page. Sections that were collapsed when you opened the printable view stay collapsed, and sections that were expanded stay expanded. A toolbar at the top lets you choose Expand All or Collapse All before you print, so you control how much detail lands on paper. One limit is worth setting expectations on early. You cannot remove individual fields from the printable layout the way you might trim a report. The view honors the page layout and field-level security, but field-by-field pruning for print is not part of the feature. If you need that level of control, a generated document or a tailored report is the better tool.
Printable View for reports in Salesforce Classic
For reports, Printable View lives on the report run page in Salesforce Classic. Lightning Experience does not offer the button, which is the single fact that trips up most admins who move a team to Lightning and then field questions about the missing link. To use it, a user needs both the Run Reports and Export Reports permissions. Clicking Printable View opens the report formatted for printing. From there you can send it straight to the printer through the browser, or save it as an Excel file and print from Excel instead. The export keeps the report format and its summary information, including any custom summary formula fields. This is different from Export Details on the same report. Export Details produces only the detail rows as raw tabular data, drops the summary rows and custom summary formulas, and is meant for clean import into another system. Printable View keeps the formatting and summaries; Export Details keeps the data tidy. Pick Printable View when the goal is a readable printout, and Export Details when the goal is a spreadsheet someone will calculate against.
Adding the action to a record page layout
On record detail pages, Printable View is an action you add to the page layout, not something that appears automatically. In Lightning Experience the action sits in the Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section of the relevant object's page layout. Drag it in, save the layout, and the button shows up on records that use that layout. Once it is there, any user who can see the record can open the printable version, expand or collapse the sections, and print. The printout reflects what that user is allowed to see. Fields hidden by field-level security do not appear, and the layout assigned to that user's profile and record type is the one that drives the output. Records owned by a queue add one wrinkle. To print a queue-owned record, a user needs the View All Data permission or membership in the queue itself. Without one of those, the printable view is not available for that record. This is the same visibility logic that governs the record everywhere else, applied to the print path.
Printable View for list views and Case Feed
Lightning Experience list views carry their own Printable View, reached through a small printer icon near the list controls. It opens the rows currently shown in the list as a clean table, sized for paper rather than the grid. This is handy for walking into a meeting with a short call list, an open-cases roster, or a pipeline snapshot without exporting to a spreadsheet first. Because it prints the list as displayed, the columns, filters, and sort order you set on the list view carry through. Reorder the columns or change the filter, and the printout changes to match. It is a quick capture of the view as it stands, not a configurable report. Case Feed has a Printable View too, aimed at support agents who need a paper or PDF copy of a case for escalation, legal hand-off, or an offline file. It pulls the case details and the feed into a single readable layout. Across all three surfaces, the pattern is the same: take what is on screen, drop the chrome, and make it printable.
Turning the feature on or off through search layouts
Admins control whether the report-style Printable View button appears through Search Layout settings on the object. The Printable View option there is a checkbox. Leave it checked and the button is available; uncheck it and you suppress the button for that object's list views in Salesforce Classic. This is the lever to reach for when a security or compliance policy wants printing turned off for a sensitive object. For record pages, the equivalent control is simply whether the Printable View action is present on the page layout. Remove the action from the layout and users assigned that layout lose the button. Add it back and they regain it. Because the action is layout-scoped, you can offer printable records to one profile and withhold them from another by assigning different layouts. Keep in mind that suppressing the button does not fully block printing. A determined user can still use the browser's own print command on a normal page. Printable View governs the clean, formatted path, not the operating system print dialog, so treat it as a usability and tidiness control rather than a hard data-loss prevention boundary.
When to use it and when to reach for something stronger
Printable View is built for ad hoc, low-ceremony output. You need a quick paper copy of one record, a short list for a hallway conversation, or a report a manager wants to mark up with a pen. In those moments it is faster than any reporting or document tool because there is nothing to configure. Click, print, done. It is not built for branded or pixel-perfect documents. There is no logo placement, no cover page, no field-by-field print control, and the styling is whatever the browser applies. The moment the output needs to look like a company document, the right tools are document generation features or a purpose-built PDF service rather than Printable View. For structured analytics on paper, a saved report is usually the better answer than printing a record one at a time. Reports let you filter, group, and summarize, then print the result with the same Printable View button in Classic. The mental model that serves teams well is this: Printable View for one-off readability, reports for analytics, and document generation when the printout has to carry a brand.
Add the Printable View action to a record page layout
Printable View on a record is a page-layout action. Here is how an admin adds it so users see a Printable View button on a record detail page in Lightning Experience.
- Open the object's page layout
In Setup, go to Object Manager, choose the object (for example Account), open Page Layouts, and edit the layout you want the button to appear on.
- Find the Printable View action
In the layout editor, select the Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section of the palette. If it still shows the default action set, click the override link so you can add your own actions.
- Drag the action onto the layout
Drag the Printable View action into the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions area, then position it among the other buttons in the order you want.
- Save and test
Save the layout, open a record that uses it, and confirm the Printable View button appears. Click it, try Expand All and Collapse All, and print to check the output.
Controls which profiles and record types see the action; assign a layout with the action only to the users who should print.
On the object's search layouts, toggles the report-style Printable View button for Classic list views independently of the record action.
Fields hidden from a user's profile do not appear in that user's printable output, so the printout respects existing access.
Sections collapsed on the detail page stay collapsed in the printable view until the user chooses Expand All.
- The report Printable View button exists only in Salesforce Classic, not in Lightning Experience.
- Users need both Run Reports and Export Reports permissions to use Printable View on a report.
- To print a queue-owned record, a user needs View All Data or membership in that queue.
- You cannot drop individual fields from a printable record layout; use a report or document tool for that.
Prefer this walkthrough as its own page? How to Printable View in Salesforce, step by step
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Print a ReportSalesforce
- Customize Printable Views for Salesforce RecordsSalesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Printable View.
- Print a ReportSalesforce
- Report Printable View vs Export DetailsSalesforce
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Printable View.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What does Printable View produce from a Salesforce record or report page?
Q2. Which page elements does Printable View remove from the output?
Q3. Which scenario best fits using Printable View?
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