Printer Friendly Pages
Ever tried to print a web page in your browser and it took
forever because of all the graphics? Did you waste a bunch
of ink on the background graphic?
You've seen sites with the solution: printer friendly pages.
Now you can offer it to your own visitors. And you don't
have to maintain two separate pages.
Just install the free Master PFP. It is a CGI program
written with Perl 5 for Unix, Linux, and NT. Pick it up at
/master/pfp/
This is what Master PFP does:
When someone clicks on your link, the program reads the
page and displays everything up to the body tag in a new
browser window.
Then it takes out all body tag attributes and specifies its
own white background.
The next part is the good part, because you specify exactly
what should and should not be included on the printer
friendly page.
You do it with "begin" and "end" tag sets. You can specify
as many tag sets as you want, allowing you to skip over
navigation bars and such. You include only what you want
to include.
For graphics, you have alternatives: (1) You can let them
be printed, (2) substitute "[image]" or any other words,
or (3) you can have the program hide the graphics.
The printer friendly page can have the URL of the original
page (clickable) printed at the top and/or bottom of the
printer friendly page.
The printer friendly page is displayed with left and right
margins, ready to be sent to your visitor's printer.
You only need one file. The instructions are in the script.
See a demonstration at the download page:
/master/pfp/
Question:
Did you find this article interesting and understandable? How can it be improved?
Your response is anonymous.
When done typing, click anywhere outside the box. [more info]
Will Bontrager
©2000 Bontrager Connection, LLC
Please note:
Articles on this website are presented "as is". However -
If you have a question about a CGI script, HTML, CSS, PHP, or JavaScript
Ask one of our Experts and you'll have your answer!
Click here for details.
