August 12, 2009

Printing All or Part of a Web Page

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

I spend way too much time in my books describing how to print web pages.

The problem is that web pages are designed to be viewed on a computer monitor, not the printed page. Often web pages are too wide to print, and often too long without page breaks in the right spot.

Most of the web page printing issues can be resolved by shrinking or enlarging the page using the Print dialog box. You can also print in landscape mode. If you want to do more work, you can save the web page to disk, then print it using Word or Excel. Yes, it’s a bother, but it works.

Still, it’s stupid that you have to resort to so much work when you’re dealing with a computer. Computers are supposed to make things easier, right?

But wait! There’s more:

Printing the web page also prints all the annoying ads and other information that shows up, whether you really want to print that stuff or not. I mean, often you just want to print the text or maybe even the images. The solution for that is even more bizarre, involving trying to select the text (which can be an exercise in frustration) or right-clicking an image.

Such pain! And for what?

A good solution I just discovered is the web page Print What You Like, found at http://www.printwhatyoulike.com/.

On the Print What You Like page, you can type in the address of the web page you want to print, or maybe the page simply has information you want to copy, link to, or save in a bookmark.

The Print Way You Like page loads up the web page you specify in a special screen. On the left side of the screen you’ll find a control panel (shown below). You can use the mouse to point at the part of the web page you want to print, clicking to select multiple areas if you desire. You can then use the control panel to print the information, save it to the clipboard, and adjust how the web page information will be saved or printed.

Choosing parts of the Wambooli Home Page to print

Choosing parts of the Wambooli Home Page to print

Print What You Like is a nifty trick. I’ll have to remember to use it when I do print stuff from the web. Until then, I’m still stuck in the habit of saving web pages to disk, copying and pasting, and generally wasting my time. Yeah, I’ll learn. Eventually.

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