Will my web pages print properly?

Printing web pages is usually unsatisfactory. If you frequently print web pages you will know that most of the time you miss an inch or so from the right side of the page, and find yourself trying to piece together the information.

You may have figured out a way to set up your print preferences to get the whole page to print, but most people have not. Most people use the default print settings in Internet Explorer.

Ideally, your pages should print without losing any content on the right of the page. Only the main body of the page, and the footer containing your all-important contact details should appear on the printed page. There is no value to the visitor in printing the menus, 'add to basket buttons' or other extraneous elements.

"What about that beautifully crafted banner image? Surely that should be proudly displayed on every printed page in order to reinforce our corporate identity?"

This is true if you are paying for the ink, on a glossy brochure for example. But think how you feel when you print out a web page. If there is a huge graphic dominating every page, or, worse still, the page comes out of the printer soggy with expensive ink because there is a background color or image, are you inclined to print off more pages from that website? Probably not.

Our solution

Pages on expensive websites often have a 'printer friendly' button or link. To be honest, this is now very old hat.

We create a stylesheet for your website that includes separate settings for print and screen. This means that the visitor does not have to do anything special, they simply print the page and it comes out looking great, with the only the 'meat of the page' printed.

If this approach does not suit you we will be happy to leave out the print-related elements of the stylesheet, so that your pages will print in the same way as regular web pages. 

It can be nice to include a smaller version of your logo designed specifically for the printed page. If this is important to you we can build this into the design. This service normally increases the cost of designing your site.