The Computer Corner
By Charles Miller

Avoid bumps in the road

Last week I poked a little fun at users who, when they have trouble printing something, will instinctively click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click… Then they wonder why the printer spits out 15 copies when it finally does print.

The incidence when more users than ever are encountering this problem is when trying to print from their web browser while in the process of surfing the internet. Things used to be a lot simpler when most printing was simple text, but today practically everything people want to print is graphical.

Working together, your computer and printer will rarely experience a bump in the road when printing simple text such as a word processing document. Problems can occur though when trying to print more complex jobs.

Today, your average web page may contain not only images, but animated ones, or video, and even sound. These things the printer simply does not know how to output on paper.

Knowing this problem exists, many website designers include a print option on their pages. This link is found within the page and was specifically developed so that users could click on it to view a printer-friendly page without video, without sound, etc. The only trick to this is finding the link.

Open any popular browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Safari, and you will usually see a print icon on the upper menu bar or task bar. This same print command may be accessed by pulling down the “File” menu then clicking on “Print,” but wait! This print command is not the one you want.

What I suggest you train yourself to do is to first look for a “Print” link within the web page you are browsing. This means you should not use the pull-down menus or icons which are always there as a part of your program. You should overlook these and seek out a “Print” link located on the web page you are visiting.

The New York Times website at www.nytimes.com includes a “print” icon as a part of every story. When reading an article online, look to the right of the text but left of the ads on the far right to find this icon. Clicking on that icon takes you to a page specially formatted for printing; without ads and without photographs. Now you are ready to print that page in the normal way. The London Times and The Dallas Morning News have similar “print” icons but located near the bottom of the page.

So, remember—the thing to do when printing anything off the web is to first look within that web page for a link labeled “Print” in order to avoid printing, or trying to print, ads, graphics and videos.

Another printing accessory everyone should learn to use is the “Print Preview” feature of most software. This is found by pulling down the “File” menu, then clicking on “Print Preview” to have the program generate an image on your screen of what is about to be printed.

If you like what you see, then simply click on the [Print] button on that screen. Sometimes a website prints better in landscape rather than portrait, and a button is there to instantly make that change.

More importantly, the Print Preview feature warns you when a certain web page is one that simply cannot be printed easily. Go to www.dallasnews.com and do a Print Preview to see what I mean; or go to washingtontimes.com to see a beautifully designed page, but one not designed for nor intended to ever be printed.


Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.