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This how-to tip will explore
several ways of making printer-friendly pages. A printer-friendly page
usually has minimal graphics, narrow margin and no navigation. Please take
a look at the following web for an example of a printer-friendly page.
http://www.waukeshabraves.org/tournament.htm
Then press the "Printer
Version of this page" link near the top of the calendar and you will see
the printer-friendly page popup in a new browser window.
Steps for Super Themes and
Shared border Webs
For webs that use Super Themes
or FrontPage shared borders, making a printer-friendly page is very
simple.
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Make a copy of the original
page, call it "mypageprn.htm, where "mypage" is the name of the original
page. Bring copied page up in the FrontPage editor.
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Then bring up the
Format->Shared Borders... dialog and remove the shared borders for the new
page (you may want to keep the bottom border for copyright info) as
illustrated below:
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Turning off the shared borders for the current
page.
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Bring up the original page and
add a "Printer-friendly version of this page" link to the printer-friendly
page. Make the Target for the link a "New Window".
This will bring the printer-friendly page up in a new browser windows so
that when the user is finished printing it they will close the window.
You might want to use the "cute"
printer icon as illustrated below:
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 Printer-friendly
version of this page
Steps for Template Based
Webs
For template based webs, the basic idea is the same:
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Make a new page, call
it "mypageprn.htm, where "mypage" is the name of the original page.
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Bring up the original page in
the FrontPage editor, select the area of the page that you want on the
printer-friendly page and press cntl-c to copy it to the clip board.
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Bring up the new page up in
the FrontPage editor and paste (cntl-v) the page data on the new page.
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Now add a "Printer-friendly
version of this page" link to the top of the page to the original page,
set the "Target" to "New Window".
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Now save your pages and
preview the original page in the browser to test it.
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There's
a Catch
The problem with this simple technique above is two fold:
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You now have two pages instead
of one.
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You also have two pages to
edit and maintain.
The first problem is only a
big deal if you want many or all your pages to be printer-friendly.
Supporting this capability has many other issues associated with it and
will be addressed in a future product offering. The second problem is
quite easy to overcome using a FrontPage "Page Include".
One Page to Edit
Now that you have created a printer-friendly page above, you can include
the printer-friendly page on the original page so that you only have to
make any required changes to the printer-friendly page and not both pages.
Here are the steps: Note: The steps below assume
you have already created a printer-friendly page as described above.
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Bring up the original page,
delete the portion of the page that is already on the printer-friendly
page, Keep the link to the printer-friendly page.
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Then select the "Insert->Web
Components..." menu and click on the "Included Content" in the left panel.
Then select the "Page" item in the right panel. Now press the Finish
button.
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Insert Page Include
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The "Include Page Properties" dialog will
appear. Press the "Browse..." button and select the printer-friendly page
in the web. Press OK and the printer-friendly page should appear on the
original page.
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Include Page Properties dialog
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Now save your pages and
preview the original page in the browser to test it.
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Bonus Tip: Making any hyperlink into
a "Print" button
It's easy to make any link or image into a browser print
button, just right-click on the selected text or image and
select the Hyperlink... button. Then enter the following
line into the Address field:
javascript:print();
And That's It
Its easy to make a printer-friendly page that is also easy to maintain.
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