From screen to paper we go...

Bard

I know HTML etc. isn't a printing layout format but it's occasionally necessary to print off web pages. The trouble is that a computer screen is, as far as the printing engine is concerned, invariably wider dimensionally than an A4 page, and so, quite often, a chunk of the right hand side of the web page is lost off the edge.

Now while I know some ways around this and some ways of making web sites more "printer friendly", and while the addition of a "get a printable version" button is always an option, I was wondering what you lot would suggest as being best for ensuring your web site is as print-ready as possible.

Anyone...?

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Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. -Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 29-01-2001).]

Bard

... Yeah ... very helpful!

I was actually looking to see if anyone had any particular tips as regards table structures, content layout, etc. ... if you've nothing useful to say then by all means... say nothing.

Kali

IE5.5 seems to have cracked it...
at least every page i print with it seems to have the text wrapped, unlike Netscapes printing "effort".

if you have plenty of text then adding a few pdf files for ppl to print is an option.

otherwise check out the majority of the online newspaper pages.. they all seem to stick to a tight text layout.. something around 450-600 pixels usually, smaller in the case of the irish times.

Enygma

Yeah it's probably easiest to have a separate version for printing, or a script that generates a printable version.
Of course you could write a script that generates a pdf and loads the plugin. In fact you can even print "silently" i.e. go directly to the printer.
I think the site is http://www.activepdf.com

I'm not sure exactly how generating a pdf is done but if you do a search for FO you should get some result.

Hope this helps.

Bard

- well it would be specifically for content driven sites, with text based content pages that would be updated regularly by the client. I'd rather not use PDF's - makes things more awkward for the end user - having to have Adobe Acrobat (Reader), and all that...

Baz_

I'll say what I want it's not my fault you don't want to write drivers but it is a very viable solution

Baz_

write your own drivers for every printer with this taken into consideration

Bard

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Baz_:
I'll say what I want it's not my fault you don't want to write drivers but it is a very viable solution</font>

Of course you'll say what you want

Suggesting that I write a driver for every printer in existence is a bit ridiculous though, particularly as I'm looking for design suggestions.

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Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. -Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

Figment

What im working on at the moment for a site is using the new print function in flash.
I have a small print flash button visable on the screen which contains all the documents for the site. As you want the content to change with the site you could have flash read from an external text/asp file.

Lucutus

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bard:
if you've nothing useful to say then by all means... say nothing.</font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Bard:
Of course you'll say what you want </font>

Jesus, make up your mind Bard. Censorship or Free Speech? Ah the dilemma that plagues us all at one time or another.

<token smiley>As for your printing problems, it always differs from site to site, I find the best ones to print are usually sites with a centered restricted width tabular structure, Like ireland.com </token smiley>

Luc

Baz_

I feel I must apologise for my behaviour yesterday but in my defence I was ridiculously tired and couldn't help it.

So soz

Bard

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Lucutus:
<token smiley>As for your printing problems, it always differs from site to site, I find the best ones to print are usually sites with a centered restricted width tabular structure, Like ireland.com </token smiley>
</font>

That's all very well and good, - granted. I was just looking to see if anyone had any specific tips for when writing a site yourself, ensuring from the outset that it will be easily printable.

It seems the options are:[*]Make the site fully resizable (using percentage widths)[*]Keep all content to a small fixed-width part of the screen/page - as ireland.com does.[*]- or as a last resort, include a "printable version" button on content pages which will link to a far more basic page, with ads, menus, etc. removed, structured better for printing (i.e.: resizable tables, etc.) and "include"-ing the content from the original page.

Cheers folks,

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Bard

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Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. -Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)