Tutorial: How to print blog articles the smart way.
Published on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 – 2:09 pmDo you ever want to read an article while going to work or while on public transport?
Do you ever want to save an article for future use? Pin it up on your wall?
Then this is when you need to print blog articles - but how many of you have been doing it the smart way?
Yes, I know all of you will be saying “You just press File, then Print.” or maybe the smart arses out there, Ctrl+P or Apple Key+P but no, this is not the best way to print blog articles.
This article will show you 2 smarter ways to print, which will save you on paper waste and ink - aka, save you money. In this example we can get a 10 page print job down to just 2 pages (or even just 1 if you have a duplex printer).
The Old Not-So-Smart Way
First off, let’s compare the way the majority of people print their blog articles. Most people would go to the article they want printed and then press Print either from the menu bar (as above) or by the keyboard shortcut CTRL + P or APPLE + P.
If you printed the old way, it would print the header of the website, the side bars and even the advertisements (see image above). Using the 11 Essential Tips to Writing a Tutorial page as an example, using the old way, it would take 10 pieces of paper (without the comments) to print the whole article which is in turn wasting paper and ink.
The Smart Way
There is an alternative to just pressing print and this is by using the ‘Print Range’ or ‘Print Selection’ function available in all printers. This smart way will get the pages down to just 4 pages or if you have a duplex printer (prints on both sides of the paper) just 2 pages.
How To Do It?
1. Highlight the parts of the page you want selected.
To do this left click at the start of the article heading and hold down your mouse button & drag down to highlight all of the text and/or images that you want to be printed. Notice the grey highlight in the image above. This is what is going to be printed.
2. Go to the usual way you print and click File, Print or press CTRL + P or Apple + P but stop there.
3. Find the ‘Print Range’ area in your print dialogue box - see picture below. The example I am using is for a Canon Printer but your printer may be different.
4. If you have a duplex printer go to step 5 if not, Click OK or Print and hey presto, you save 6 pages of paper.5. Duplex: If you have duplex printing, try to find in your print options, a tick box that has ‘Duplex Printing’ or ‘Double Sided Printing’ and make sure this is ticked. The location of this tick box is different on every printer so this goes beyond this tutorial, but check your printer manual.
The Smartest Way to Print
There is an even smarter way to print but it is a bit more time consuming and you also must have a Word editor such as Microsoft Word. Using this way I managed to get everything into just 2 pages, or just 1 page if you have duplex printing. This way is saving you 8 or 9 pages of paper.
How To Do It?
1. Highlight the parts of the page you want selected.
To do this left click left Click at the start of the article heading and hold down your mouse button & drag down to highlight all of the text and/or images that you want to be printed. This is what is going to be printed.
2. Open your Word editor and press Paste (Ctrl + V). This will paste the article or your selection into your word editor.
3. If using Microsoft Word Go to File, Page Setup, change the Margins to 1cm on all sides. See image.
4. Go through your article and delete any images that you do not wish to have.Change the font size to what ever you find readable.5. If you have a duplex printer go to step 5 if not, Click OK or Print and hey presto, you save 8 pages of paper.
6. Duplex: If you have duplex printing, try to find in your print options, a tick box that has ‘Duplex Printing’ or ‘Double Sided Printing’ and make sure this is ticked. The location of this tick box is different on every printer so this goes beyond this tutorial, but check your printer manual.
Inspiration
This article was inspired by Vivien’s article Blog Feng Shui which told me how bloggers can create print friendly blog articles by CSS. Vivien told me how not everyone knew about the method of selection printing and that is why I have written this tutorial for DailyBlogTip’s Blog Writing Project on Tutorials.
3 More Great Tutorials:
- Optimize your Blog Post for Google - Tips that you might not have heard by Shankar.
- Effective Linking With Your Old Post in 10 Steps by Dexter.
- Protect Your Blog And Counter Copyright Thefts by Tibi
Support and Questions
If you have any questions or support feel free to ask. Is there anything I missed or some other way for smarter, quicker, more resourceful printing? Thanks.
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34 Responses
to “Tutorial: How to print blog articles the smart way.”
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inspirationbit on Jan 23, 2008 said:
Nice one! Good job, Jacob. Now, does it mean that you won’t be creating a printer-friendly CSS for your site?
Congratulations with your site getting up and running and again! What was the issue this time?
inspirationbit’s last blog post..Social Media Mega Project
Jacob Cass (@justcreative) on Jan 23, 2008 said:
When I get time and my site gets fixed.
The site is still not fixed, it is a temporary solution. There is a problem with my permalinks (you can see that some pages are using dates ie. /2007/12/12/ dates (this is the old way and the way i want it to go back to) but at the moment I am using the default ugly structure (ie. ?page_id=3) for a bad half working temporary fix. I have posted a support question over at the support forums…
http://wordpress.org/support/t.....ost-681054
But no answers yet.
LaurenMarie - Creative Curio on Jan 24, 2008 said:
I use both of these ways to print stuff for reading offline. Sometimes it’s easier to read long articles when they are printed, especially if the font is small (copying to Word also allows you to change font size). Great tutorial
LaurenMarie - Creative Curio’s last blog post..How to Customize Photoshop Brushes
Jacob Cass (@justcreative) on Jan 24, 2008 said:
Oh oops, I forgot to add change the font size, I added that bit in, thanks Lauren
LaurenMarie - Creative Curio on Jan 24, 2008 said:
Oh, sure, no problem. I just mentioned it cuz it’s what I do! I usually increase the leading, too, but that’s just the designer in me
LaurenMarie - Creative Curio’s last blog post..Experimenting with Photoshop Brushes
Dexter | Techathand.net on Jan 29, 2008 said:
Thanks for linking to my post. I am now subscribed to your RSS.. For future great article..
Happy Blogging
Dexter | Techathand.net’s last blog post..My Top 5 Picks for Daily Blog Tips Writing Project
Jacob Cass (@justcreative) on Jan 29, 2008 said:
Your welcome. Thanks for subscribing.
Shankar Ganesh on Jan 31, 2008 said:
Thanks for linking to the post I wrote for DBT Project
Shankar Ganesh’s last blog post..Optimize your Blog Post for Google - Tips that you might not have heard
Jacob Cass (@justcreative) on Jan 31, 2008 said:
Your welcome Shankar
Good luck.
Collin Peterson on Sep 12, 2008 said:
Great resource! Thank you for posting this.
Collin Peterson’s last blog post..How to Make a Book Series - Choosing Media Components
Al on Oct 2, 2008 said:
This is useful. I used to print articles the smart way (yay!).
Here’s another tip:
After pasting all the text and removing unwanted images in Microsoft word, I make sure that the page setting is set to LANDSCAPE. Then, I use the columns option, where I usually set the text into two to four columns. The columns somehow make the text more collapsed. (I don’t know how)
When printed, you get a landscaped orientation with, let’s say 3 columns. You have the option to fold it in thirds (brochure type). So when you’re in the train, you can read your article in a handy way. (as compared to holding a big 8.5 x 11 piece of paper)
Hope it helps!
Jacob Cass (@justcreative) on Oct 11, 2008 said:
Thank you for the tip Al, quite useful!
I now have a Print This Page function (under every post) on this blog which is even better however that is not on all blogs.
Shufgata Naz on Nov 25, 2008 said:
well… i visit your website first time and found this site very usefull and intresting !
well… you guys doing nice work and i just want to say that keep rocking and keep it up !!!!
Regards
Alishba
Kori on Mar 4, 2009 said:
Ok, what if I want to print my own blog? In january I decided to print my last years’ worth of blog posts and bind them. I tried sending it to One-note and it lost all of the background colors and graphics. Straight printing lost some of the photos and didn’t give me any control over page breaks and left those annoying headers. I found one company that does this commercially (blog2print.com) that supports Blogger but it seemed expensive. Any other suggestions?
Jacob Cass (@justcreative) on Mar 4, 2009 said:
Hi Kori,
Wish I could help you here however I haven’t really thought about this. That blog2print site doesn’t seem that expensive.
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Crazy96 on Oct 23, 2009 said:
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brochures (@myprintingbook) on Oct 28, 2009 said:
im always printing new articles to take to work with me just in case im bored. this is really good help on the printing tips.