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CUTTING PAPER - OTHER TOOLS - Printing from the web |
Printing from the web
Most documents on the Web are based on HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
and were designed for viewing on a computer screen, not on paper.
There are a variety of differences between screen and paper viewing that
lead to excess paper use when printing web documents.
Page width
If the web page (or frame within a page) is narrower than a printed page,
then you will get lots of blank space. If the web page is wider,
then you either lose information, or need another page to accommodate the
extra content, again resulting in lots of blank space. This blank
space is inefficient use of paper, and makes reading the information
on paper very difficult.
The simplest way to deal with wide pages is to print them in 'landscape'
rather than 'portrait' mode.
This will likely allow most web pages you print to fit on one page. .
Frames
More and more web sites are using 'frames' to display their content (these
are a collection of independent windows to allow part of the content to
scroll and part to stay static).
This very page is an example of the use of frames.
When printing, you are often best off printing only a single frame.
In most browsers, you simply select a frame by clicking your mouse in it
or selecting some text, then select "File/Print Frame...".
Under Explorer you can print just a portion of a page rather than the
entire page.
Font size
Computer screens have a much lower ‘resolution’ than printers do so that
larger fonts are needed for the same level of legibility. Thus, on
many web sites, the font size (measured in points) is larger than would
be used for the same information designed to be presented on paper.
This font size ‘inflation’ means that more paper space is needed for the
same amount of content.
Granularity
For ease of navigation and faster downloading, web pages are often broken
into smaller sections than printed documents, so that printed versions
of web documents take up many more pages than the same information designed
with paper output in mind.
Resources
For Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, an article
Capture the Web in Print reviews tips for printing from the web, including
many specific to Explorer 4.0.
For Netscape Browsers, a
quick summary of printing options is available.
What does this all mean?
All of this means that the shift to electronic information management—as
the web allows—can lead to the use of more paper in some instance, rather
than less as hoped. There are some strategies to reduce this.
How to print these web pages
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U.S. Federal
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