Welcome!

[RottenRoller]

Hello everybody!

Recently a customer complaint about a background-image that couldn't be printed by browsers like IE6, IE7 and Safari (some version?). It was attached to a 2nd-level div-container and i didn't even recognize that these browsers do not display it for print, till yet.

I've always neglected print-stylesheets and I ask myself how you handle it.

Do you always set up a media print-stylesheet when creating a website
Which rules do you follow and which format(s) of output do you implement

Cheers + thx!

[Connie]

I try to do that
It is important

to find out what NOT to do is very easy:
go to a normal website, f.e. a newspaper website and check print preview... you will learn immediately how important a print layout is..

just recently I just sent a website to the printer and went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee
when I came back, my printer ran out of paper... that miserable website (estimated 2000 characters message...) tried to print 147 pages !!!! because an idiot (or an idiotic webpagehtmleditordontaskmewhat) added a page-break to every element...

[RottenRoller]

Ok. I see.
But is it important to print a website's design or more to print the pure information - the content?

I would simply disable the (background)images (it's the default in nearly every browser) and the colors. It's better to save toner consumption.
Maybe adjust the width to a printable format, but leave the whole thing as pure as possible...

Is it really necessary to adapt the whole design?

[banjo]

It's necessary to ditch any information that is unimportant to a printed layout ... like forms, menus, etc. Try doing a print preview of this very page so you can see what information can easily be left out of the printed version -- what should be 1 page of content turns out to be 5, most of it useless.

Having said that, printed versions are only really necessary for things that would reasonably expected to be printed. Of course that's up to your discretion, but I wouldn't spend time making a website registration form printer friendly. I would, however, spend a decent amount of time making a restaurant's menu printer friendly and encourage users to print it for reference.

[Parallax]

Having a print media CSS can actually save you a lot of headache. Have you ever experienced a boss or client who suddenly realized that all or part of your website doesn't print very well? Explaining the vagaries of printable backgrounds and margin-friendly markup is a complete waste of time. They don't care about the details, they just want it how they want it. It's up to you to manage those expectations, and if you grab the steering wheel, you can make your life much easier.

Early in a project's timeline I like to identify which pages, if any, need to be printable. After you've identified pages which a customer may want to print and save, you can sell this as a feature to the project manager and project stakeholders. By doing so, you've defined and quantified the notion of "print friendly" into a specific set of pages. In the same motion, you've exempted other parts of the site from this potentially difficult objective.

Now all you have to do is define a print CSS and set up the site to spawn printable content in a new window when the user wants to print it. Parts of the site print fine, parts don't - and that's OK. Everybody wins.