[WEB4LIB] handout printing tips

Fri Sep 3 15:09:00 EDT 2004

Resending my reply to the list because exchange server refused to
"relay" it to Nina's e-mail address. Sorry to clutter.

1. Give the table that is 750pixels wide an id, and insert a style for
the width:

<table id="main" style="width:750px;" border="0" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="0">

2. Add a print style to the <head>:

<style type="text/css" media="print">
/*let printer use its own margins*/
body {margin: 0:} 
table#main { width: 100%; } 
</style>

3. In the table cells that have a specified width of 750px, change the
width to 100%.

You may have to tweak the print style to get what you want, but the
cause of things getting cut off is most often a table or div that has a
pixel width that is too wide to print. If the body style adds left and
right margins, and the printer also adds its own margin, that can also
cause problems.

Hope this helps,
Araby
__________________________
Araby Greene
Web Development Librarian
Getchell Library/322
University of Nevada, Reno
http://www.library.unr.edu/ 

araby at unr.edu
775.784.6500 x343

> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib at webjunction.org 
> [mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Nina McHale
> Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 10:52 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: [WEB4LIB] handout printing tips
> 
> Greetings, all,
> 
> Can anyone share some tips about making web documents print neatly as
> 8.5 x 11 handouts?  We maintain a couple dozen subject guides 
> and we're reconsidering the format. The current web format of 
> the guides, which print fine on 8.5 x 11, looks like this:
> 
> http://www.library.georgetown.edu/guides/africanamerican/index.htm
> 
> And we're considering switching to this to make them match 
> the template of our website:
> 
> http://www.library.georgetown.edu/guides/chemistry/index.htm
> 
> Mozilla's "shrink to fit" option truncates the images, and 
> I'd prefer to avoid a browser-specific fix, anyway.  We also 
> don't want to maintain both an HTML and a .pdf file for each 
> guide.  Is there something simple in the code of our current 
> format (I wasn't here when they were
> designed) that makes them word wrap neatly onto a print copy?
> 
> Reply to me, and I'll summarize if there's interest. 
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Nina
> 
> Nina McHale
> Reference Librarian/Web Services Coordinator Lauinger Library 
> Georgetown University
> 
> 