5.1. Browser Print Mechanisms
All
graphical
browsers have basic print and page setup controls that interface with
the printer the same as any other application. In the Page Setup
dialog box, users can generally select whether the page should print
in portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) format and specify
how many copies to print.
Internet Explorer goes beyond the simple print button by giving user
more fine-tuned controls for printouts. Its Print Preview feature
(introduced in Version 4.5 on the Mac and in 5.5 for Windows) shows
how the web page will look when it's printed out. Within the
Print Preview dialog box, users can select whether they want to add
headers and footers with the URL and other page information, whether
images print, and whether background and text colors should be
preserved. The page shrinks to fit the print area by default, but
users can opt to have it crop at the edge or print in tiles.
Internet Explorer Versions 4 and 5.0 (for Windows) use the Page Setup
dialog box for setting page size, orientation, headers/footers, and
margins, but there is no preview function. Background and text colors
can be preserved by clicking the appropriate box under
"Printing" in the advanced Internet Options dialog box.
Netscape Navigator offers similar printer controls for Windows users.
Starting with Version 4.7, the Page Setup dialog box offers control
over headers, footers, margins, and orientation. There is also a
Print Preview option available. Unfortunately, these advanced options
are not available for Navigator on the Macintosh.
Although browsers offer built-in print features, you can't
depend on users to use them or even to know that they are available.
Fortunately, in most cases, browsers released since 1998 do a
reasonably good job of printing web pages by default. They generally
try to shrink the contents to fit the print area, and they may also
be sophisticated enough to preserve background and text colors (for
printing light text on a dark background). But if you want to be
absolutely sure your pages print in a predictable way, there are a
few extra measures you may choose to take.
