Printer Friendly Pages

[Brandon]

Hey

Do you think its good to have aprinter friendly version of your website? With vB it does that for you, but with static page sites, do you think its good to take the time and make pages that will print good without all the graphics?

[jaswinder_rana]

If you think, users will print your pages a lot, then sure you should do that.

Its easy to do with dynamic pages, but for static pages, you have to have double for every page.

Also remember, any change has to be updated twice. So, you want to think about your strategy how you are going to do that

[Brandon]

Yea good points. I think it would depend mostly on what kind of site your running, and how many people you think print your pages, as you said.

Thanks

[Geoserv]

Its easy for all types of pages with CSS.

Not only should you have your style.css, but you should have a print.css file. The print file will tell the browser what to print when the visitor wants to print the page, for example an article.

I have it on my website, and it keeps the browser from printing images/ads etc...

Example page
print.css

See? With CSS you can do so much, with such a small file.

Geoserv.

[Jerlene]

I don't see what the point is. I don't know anyone who actually prints stuff off of your website unless it's an article they can't get anywhere else or something.

[Geoserv]

The point isn't how many people will print anything, the point is making things easier and more accessible for your visitors. Thats part of being a webmaster.

You may not see the point but soem people do print articles or whatever, so make it easier for them by blocking the graphics which eats up ink and print time.

For 5 minutes work on a print.css file, you avoid aggrevating your visitors with pages of garbage for a 5 paragraphs.

Its a convenience factor, alot of websites ahve a printer friendly button that will takwe the visitor to page with little to no graphics, which is better, making them reload another page or just hitting print and getting the content without the graphics?

Think about it.

Geoserv.

[Geoserv]

I found a great article about this:

Print style sheets

Geoserv.