Save on Paper & Ink When You Print Web Pages

Sending a document to print is easier than ever. With printer apps and portable printer technology continuously progressing, printing from your smart phone, desktop or tablet is like second nature. You just hit print and it’s sent.

With this ability to print so easily however, we are also more likely to waste a ton of paper, ink and toner when printing web pages directly as they are. Do you really need or want to print the advertisements on a web page? Just think of how much ink is used to print unnecessary images that don’t lend any value to the words on the web page you want a hard copy of.

Save yourself and your company money, while saving the environment by taking the time to prepare your web pages to print properly. It takes mere minutes, it’s free, and it will actually save considerable paper and ink costs in the end if you make it a consistent practice when you print. There are actual websites and web browser extensions that’ll reduce what is printed on your page for you. Or you can also just select what you want to print through your browser. Let us explain:

From Your Browser

This handy trick lets you simply select only the text you want to print and sends it to your printer. Forget copy and pasting text into a word document to get rid of advertisements and unnecessary graphics. Using the steps listed below, you can highlight what you want a hard doc of and send it straight to print. Note, directions are different depending on what browser your are using to view the web page you want to print.

If you are using Google Chrome as your browser and you are on a web page but only want to print a particular passage of text, you can simply select the text and then right click to select “Print”. Once you do so, the print preview window will appear and show you the selection you’ve chosen and how it will appear on the printed page. Note that the shortcut of CTRL + P will not work for Chrome.

However, if you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can use CTRL + P shortcut after you have selected the text you would like to print on a web page to launch the print menu. In this window “All” is selected by default but you will simply have to change it by checking off “Selection”. Then press OK. This will then print only the text that you have highlighted.

PrintFriendly.com

PrintFriendly is a website that lets you simply enter in the URL of the webpage you’d like to clean up. It removes ads, navigation and miscellaneous web page junk to save you paper and ink when you print web pages. It is also absolutely free. There are also Firefox, IE, Chrome, Safari and iPad & iPhone extensions available that you can add to your browser.

On the website, once you’ve entered the URL of the web page you’d like to alter and trim down – a ‘print preview’ page is generated. Within the preview, you can further remove all images or reduce their size, and you can also select areas that you’d like to delete from the print job.

PrintWhatYouLike.com

Another website that gives you the opportunity to alter web pages prior to sending them to your printer is PrintWhatYouLike.com. While it is similar to PrintFriendly.com, this web based app allows for more aggressive cutting out of sections that you do not want printed. The user interface again asks for the webpage URL that you want to pare down and once you have entered it, it opens the page with an editing feature. Here you can hide all background, image, and margin information if you wish. You can also highlight and select areas that you want to remove or resize.

By using these tools and tricks you can significantly reduce your paper and ink consumption when printing web pages. In doing so, you’re helping not only your wallet or your employers expenditures, but also the environment. Get your green karma going and reduce unnecessary waste with our aforementioned simple tips for reformatting web pages. Happy printing.