Almost every week we hear people ask about information or pictures that they find on the web, “Why doesn’t this print right?” “I get all this stuff on the sides.” or ” I can’t get the whole document to print.”
Here are a few things I usually recommend trying to get a document to print correctly.
1.Look up at the top of the page for a link that says ”Printable View“ or “Printer Friendly Version“ or “No Frames". Click on that link before printing. (This usually brings up the body of the document removing any of the frames around it).
2.Some pages, like Live Hotmail, or documents in Adobe Reader actually display a little printer Icon below the browser's toolbar (not on the same bar as the little house for home). Clicking on this is the best way to print in those cases.
3.Use Print Preview before you waste paper and money. In Internet Explorer 7.0 you can either Right Click on the page and choose Print Preview (or hit the key on the keyboard, and then F for File menu and V for Preview.) Print Preview brings up an image of each of the pages you are about to print, it is important to notice how many pages it tells you there are. This is down at the bottom of the screen where it says if this is page 1 of 1 pages or 1 of 57 pages. It’s helpful to know that before you hit print. It also gives you a toolbar across the top with a printer to choose to print, and buttons that allow you to change to landscape printing or other options.
4.Sometimes you just want to print a part of a document. In that case, try highlighting the part of the document that you want to print by dragging your mouse across the text and/or pictures that you wish to print. Then either Right Click in the middle of the highlighted area and choose Print Preview or hit the key on the keyboard, and then F for File menu and V for Preview. When Print Preview comes up this time there will be 3 drop down menus at the end of the toolbar at the top. The first may say “1 page view”, the second will probably say “As laid out on the screen.” Click on the second menu and choose “As selected on the screen” instead, or in some cases if the option is available you may want to try “Only the selected frame.” After changing that selection, the preview should show a new image of what will be printed. This image can be changed if necessary, by playing around with the last drop down menu on sizing and the layout buttons at the beginning of the toolbar to get what you need on the page before you pay a cent.
5.Lastly if none of the above worked, you can try copying what you want to print to another program, such as Microsoft Word or Wordpad to print. This is especially helpful if you wish to change the text size, font, or color for easier reading. As above, you first highlight the section you wish to print. Then tap the ” Ctrl +C” keys simultaneously to copy. Minimize the window you are in by clicking the Minimize box (the little minus sign button at the top right of the window). Then open Word and tap the “CTRL+V” keys to paste the copied material. Make any formatting changes you need and print from there. Don’t forget to copy where you found what you are copying and who wrote it so you can give them credit and so you can find the resource again.
These 5 steps won’t solve every problem, printing pictures can be a whole different headache. Sometimes copying to Word works for pictures, sometimes not. Occasionally, the website creator has intentionally used some techniques to protect his graphics from being copied or printed and in that case, I really can’t and don’t want to help you for copyright reasons.
