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How to fix printing of webpages if the print looks completely different from the on-screen page?

  • 1 valiny
  • 8 manana an'ity olana ity
  • 7 views
  • Valiny farany nomen'i the-edmeister

LLH
LLH
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This problem occurs frequently: The printed copy of web pages looks completely different from the actual image on the screen: first page printed appears to be in HTML code; page headers, graphics, text, tables, pictures etc. may be missing; blank pages may be inserted; and/or the printed font types, styles, sizes become different.

This problem occurs frequently: The printed copy of web pages looks completely different from the actual image on the screen: first page printed appears to be in HTML code; page headers, graphics, text, tables, pictures etc. may be missing; blank pages may be inserted; and/or the printed font types, styles, sizes become different.

All Replies (1)

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
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To get a printed copy of a web page exactly as it is displayed you need to do a Print Screen of the page.

Using your example MSN Money page, when viewing Print Preview in Firefox 3.6.10, Safari 5.0.1, Opera 10.61, and IE8 - they all format the contents of that page for printing differently from each other and none show the page as it is viewed on the screen. The "advertisement" and the navigation menu is causing the main differences between the browsers.

That said, Firefox fails horribly when trying to format that page for printing, it only want to print the navigation menu from the top of the page. All the other browsers I mentioned do "print" the main content of that page - the Fund Finder Results table - but Opera is the only one that puts the entire table on one page (which is how I think a browser should handle that page for printing), the other 2 split that table across 2 pages.

All 4 browsers would print the un-necessary navigation bar from the top of the page, which is the only thing Firefox would print.

Bottom line is that page isn't meant to be printed, the manner in which that page is formatted isn't conducive to being printed - it lacks Meta tags for media= print and /or a print.css file = specific instructions for what a web browser should print from that page. (unless that page is doing @import of that information thru a css file I didn't view)