[WEB4LIB] Re: printing problems with web pages

[Ryan Eby]

Unfortunately creating a stylesheet that will work across many sites
to make the printing work right is not easy. Depending on how
different or complex a site is compared to another you may actually
make the site worse. Applying a stylesheet using the browser options
also applies it to the screen media as well. This could probably be
fixed with a bookmarklet or an extension. This is why I didn't
recommend it.

The best option is still to select the text in question and print
selection. If it's a site that has a lot of content then it might be
possible to contact the webmaster and ask them to add a print
stylesheet to that specific site. If they are content-driven then they
might be more than happy to add it in order to help people use their
site. Of course the more sites in question the less of an option this
is.

On a side note, Firefox (and probably Mozilla) has an option to scale
the page down to the paper size. This works on many sites though I've
had some trouble with complex floats. This option may also be
available in the printer configuration though Internet Explorer never
seems to care when I try.

Ryan Eby

On Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:31:49 -0800 (PST), Kevin W Bishop <bishopk at rpi.edu> wrote:
> 
> Actually, I believe what the original poster -- who isn't the author of
> every site her patrons visit -- needs is a customized, "user-defined"
> print media style sheet.  Perhaps it could be a part of the basic
> install and configuration of the default browser on public machines?
> 
> Articles that may help:
> 
> http://aware.hwg.org/tips/essay_kb_03.html
> http://www.alistapart.com/articles/printyourway/
> http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/ie6/formatpage.aspx
> 
> -kb
> 
> 
> ___________________________
> Kevin W. Bishop > bishopk at rpi.edu
> Communication & Collaboration Technologies
> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute > http://www.rpi.edu/
>   RPInfo: http://www.rpi.edu/rpinfo/
> 
>