CSS : Document for printing

CSS document for printing


Lots of web pages have a link to a print-friendly version. What many of them don't realise is that there's no need because you can set up a second CSS document to be called up when a user prints the page.

So, your page header should contains links to two CSS documents, one for the screen, and one for printing:

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheet.css" media="screen" />
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="printstyle.css" media="print" />

The first line of code calls up the CSS for the screen (notice the inclusion of media="screen") and the second line calls up the CSS for the printable version (using media="print").

So, what commands should you put in this second CSS document? To work it out, open a blank document and save it as printstyle.css. Next, point the screen CSS command to this document so that the command reads: 

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="printstyle.css" media="screen" />.

Now just keep entering CSS commands until the display on the screen matches how you want the printed version to look. 

You'll certainly want to make use of the display: none command for navigation, decorative images and non-essential items. For more advice on this, read Print Different, which also mentions the other media for which you can specify CSS files.

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