Our Family History Web Site Printing Tips

Introduction

Similar to viewing, printing web pages is dependent on many factors, in particular the operating system, the web browser and version, the printer, and paper size. Many but not all pages types have been tested for printing. And as with viewing pages, in general the more up-to-date your browser the better. Later versions of printers and printer drivers can also help.

There are three situations that may cause some printing difficulties. These are:

  1. Printed Text Too Large or Too Small
  2. Pages with Wide and Long Tables
  3. Printing Photos from Frames
Printed Text Too Large or Too Small

There are at least two ways print size on paper can be adjusted:

  1. On some browsers, you can adjust the size of the text on your computer screen through keyboard commands or a large/small icon. Sometimes by making the text larger or smaller on the sreen, it will change the size of the text on paper also.
  2. You can also change the default font size in your browser preferences. This may then change the size of the font that is printed. If you have it set to font size 18 because you like fonts big on the computer screen, then the page will generally print at font size 18. But if that is too large on paper and you don't like method one above, then try changing the default size to something smaller such as 10, 11, or 12.
Pages with Wide and Long Tables

There are a number of pages with a few paragraphs of explanatory text at the top and a very wide and long table at the bottom. In my tests, Firefox handled the printing of these tables very well. For Safari, it was necessary to print in landscape mode to improve the look. In some browsers, there is a % reduction choice that can help get the page to fit on paper. For pages with wide tables, it is usedful to explore the use of landscape mode. Unfortunately, the solution to making a nice print takes a bit of experimenting with different browsers and font sizes to make it look best. On the other hand, if all you want is a quick print to review on paper, just print. The worst that can happen is the print is too large or too small or runs many more pages than necessary.

One problem with long tables that can't be solved is that many times at the end of the paper page the text is cut off in the middle of a row of text instead of at the end of a line. The reason this occurs is that the table is really similar to a very long photo. This table (or photo of a table if you wish) then gets chopped at the end of a paper page which then restarts at the top of the next. Not what you might desire, but that is the explanation for why it occurs.

Photos

Your browser provides limited controls for page set-up. These include: portrait or landscape, percent reduction, and page headers and footers. You may or may not wish to insert page headers and footers such as date and web page location. By working the percent reduction, you may be able to reduce the text enough to a single page of picture and text or by enlarging you may flow the text to a second page if you desire only the picture. The choice of font on your computer screen and what is printed is determined by your browser's font preferences.

To save download time and memory, the pictures were stored in jpg format with enough pixels to display at high quality on the computer screen. Printed pictures will be of lesser quality given the small number of bits. In general though, I have found most of the pictures look pretty good when printed.

Below are some specific tips for printing photos from either PCs or Macs.

Downloading an Image

If you are just interested in the image and not the text on the same page, you may wish to download the image to your desktop and then use any of a number of photo editors to shrink, crop or perform other photo editing actions.