/CSS/ Work with print style sheets
25/04/2008 | Filed under Develop > CSS
Craig Grannell provides you with a quick and easy guide to taking advantage of CSS for print, enabling you to fine-tune your site’s output
If doomsayers are to be believed, the printed page is on borrowed time, soon to be eclipsed by the all-powerful might of the internet. The thing is, many people sit all day in front of a screen, and aren’t chuffed about doing the same again when they get home.
Also, while the average monitor size continues to grow, most users don’t have access to a practical screen size for tasks such as rapid editing and note-taking. Printed output lets you scribble down ideas, underline chunks of text or fold a bunch of articles and stuff them in a pocket. Try doing that with a laptop!
Unfortunately, the majority of web designers don’t pay much attention to the printed output of websites they create, despite it being increasingly easy to control that output. Once, you were somewhat forced to create separate, print-only versions of a site, which had to be laboriously kept synchronised with the main site. (In fact, many organisations still use this method, despite it being archaic.) But because CSS can be targeted at different media types, you can create styles specifically for print and keep them separate from the ones designed for screen. Also, because certain global conventions exist for print – as you’ll see later – you can create a print style sheet once, and then make relatively few changes when using it on numerous websites.
About the author:
Name: Craig Grannell
Site: www.snubcommunications.com
Areas of expertise: Information architecture, site concepts, graphics, interface and front-end design
Clients: Swim~, Rebellion, IDG
Favourite Beatles song: Yellow Submarine, if I have to choose
Click here to download the support files
Click here to download tutorial PDF
Comments
Chloe Baby / 27/04/2008 / 03:41 / http://www.babythings4u.co.uk
The beauty about the internet over the printed paper is that is allows knowledge learned by anyone to be shared with anyone at no cost.
The only problem with the internet as it is at the moment is that is controlled by the few !
I also have many clients who ask for their website to make sure when its printed it prints onto one or two pages and not just take up 5 or 6 by being a thin column of text down the middle of the pages..
Adam Maxwell / 30/06/2008 / 10:56 / http://www.adammaxwell.com
Thanks for this, it's always difficult to achieve decent cross-browser print styles that actually work. I'm looking forward to trying this.
