Print Stylesheet - The Definitive Guide

By Trenton Moss
2008-01-24


Introduction

A print stylesheet formats a web page so when printed, it automatically prints in a user-friendly format. Print stylesheets have been around for a number of years and have been written about a lot. Yet so few websites implement them, meaning we're left with web pages that frustratingly don't properly print on to paper.

It's remarkable that so few websites use print stylesheets as:

• Print stylesheets enormously improve usability, especially for pages with a lot of content (such as this one!)
• They're phenomenally quick and easy to set up

Some websites do offer a link to a print-friendly version of the page, but this of course needs to be set up and maintained. It also requires that users notice this link on the screen, and then use it ahead of the regular way they print pages (e.g. by selecting the print button at the top of the screen). Print-friendly versions are however useful when printing a number of web pages at the same time such as an article that spans on to several web pages.

Tutorial Pages:
» Introduction
» How to set up your print stylesheet
» What to put in your print stylesheet
» Making the print stylesheet

Related Tutorials: » Planning Your Stylesheet - The Definitive Guide » CSS Shorthand Properties » Using CSS Selectors to Highlight Unedited Form Fields » An Introduction to CSS » Overlapping tabbed navigation in CSS » Cascading Style Sheets - CSS