d8

Printable pages at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group d

magnify imageFigureD8.1 Some Web sites, such as Martha Stewart’s, make it easy for their customers to print Web pages by linking them to a special printable format that strips out navigation elements, frames, and advertising, leaving only the logo and the content.

Background

Every site genre has pages that could be useful to print, especially the HOMEPAGE PORTAL (C1), CATEGORY PAGES (B8), CLEAN PRODUCT DETAIL (F2) pages, and ORDER CONFIRMATION AND THANK-YOU (F8) page. This pattern describes how to print any Web page.

Close

PROBLEM

Sometimes customers want to print what‘s on their screen. They become frustrated if a printed Web page chops off content, goes on and on with pages of irrelevant data, or does not offer a printer-friendly version.

buy the book to find out more

SOLUTION

magnify image FigureD8.3 To make your pages more printable, simplify them by removing extraneous columns and navigation and by combining content split across multiple pages.

Create a printer-friendly page template by using a style sheet that removes frames, additional columns, navigation bars, and sidebars. Join content split across multiple pages, and label the printable page with the page title, author, and URL. Finally, be sure that the main content is not placed within an HTML table, because tables can cause serious printing problems.

Other Patterns to Consider

Create a printer-friendly page template by removing frames, CONSISTENT SIDEBARS OF RELATED CONTENT (I6), and NAVIGATION BARS (K2) that run next to the content going down a page. If the HTML in your Web pages is structured well, printable pages can be easily created with STYLE SHEETS (D11). Creating printable versions of your content can help with SITE ACCESSIBILITY (B9), as well as with WRITING FOR SEARCH ENGINES (D6).

Close

 

Pattern Resources

PATTERN COMMENTS

POST A COMMENT and/or EXAMPLE WEBSITE

You must be logged in to post a comment.