While developing a resources page for printing (stay tuned!), I stumbled upon a new site called Print Friendly which let’s you add easy ways for readers to print out your blog posts.
Why is this important? Very often, blog readers will simply press the print icon in their browser and the entire page will print out including your sidebar items, etc. With Print Friendly the focus is on the blog post itself.
Adding a Print Friendly Button to Your Blog
The Print Friendly site even has a page listing instructions for adding a button at the end of your blogs. The process is not difficult but for Blogger users, I recommend backing up your template before you make changes and add the Print Friendly button.
Great Print Options
Once installed, when your readers click the Print Friendly button, this is what they’ll see:
Options include the ability to remove graphics, print to PDF, email and even use Twitter for the blog post.
Conclusion
If you do take the plunge and decide to add the Print Friendly button, let us know in the Comments.
© 2010, copyright Thomas MacEntee
Just added a Print Friendly button to my blogs – here's how! http://su.pr/5bm2lh
RT @geneabloggers: Just added a Print Friendly button to my blogs – here's how! http://su.pr/5bm2lh
Great info! RT @geneabloggers Just added a Print Friendly button to my blogs – here's how! http://su.pr/5bm2lh
That is a great idea. So many times I have printed an entire blog site. This tool sounds like it makes everything easier. I will definitely check it out!
RT @geneabloggers: Just added a Print Friendly button to my blogs – here's how! http://su.pr/5bm2lh
Oh wow. Finding a plug-in like this has been on my to-do list for weeks, but I hadn’t gotten around to it.
I just installed it (WP, self-hosted blog) and it works exactly the way I wanted. Thanks!
When I added it, it formatted the posts strangely for printing…for example adding carriage returns before and after every link, even when the linked phrase was in the middle of a sentence.
Obviously, from the picture in your post, that didn’t happen to you. I don’t know what I did wrong.
RT @geneabloggers: Just added a Print Friendly button to my blogs – here's how! http://su.pr/5bm2lh
This sounds great, but I’m thinking that maybe there’s something I’m not doing, since I’ve never felt the need to print from my blog, or anyone else’s. Can others share with me how/why/when you are doing this?
Thanks!
Renate
This is super, thanks, again, Thomas!!
Renate, I am so old fashioned in some ways, I would REALLY like a hard copy of my posts. A super scrapbook.
Thomas,
Thanks for passing the tip along. It was easy to complete although finding in correct HTML ‘tag’ took a bit of time but it works great!
Ian
Thomas,
Thank you. The problem that I had, is that the Images on my Blog wouldn’t print.
Am trying to see what I did wrong.
Selected Blogger and put the HTML code as directed.
The window shows up, but the images don’t print.
Thank you,
Russ
Thomas,
Your blog worked as expected.
Thank you,
Russ
How cool is that…..and easy!
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It works well and was easy to add to my blog. However, no where did their website say anything about an advertisement pop-up being added to my blog for people who use the little button (either print or pdf). I do NOT like having an ad associated with my blog so I have already removed the button from my blog. (Both of the ads that came up for me were Netflix. I don’t know if they change or rotate, etc.)
On the other hand, I do like the option of having the service available to me on my browser for some of the webpages that are hard to print. So, at least for now, I’ll leave the booklet on my toolbar.
Oh, and let me add that at least when used from my blog, in both the printer and pdf choices, the font was changed and things were moved around just a bit. Everything was there and was very nice looking, but it was not exactly the same as it is in my blog.
Also, the second time I tried them both, the ad was for another company. I guess I can’t complain when it’s a freebie….
Thomas – I love printing blog posts; this was one of the features that sold me on moving my blog to Squarespace blogging platform last summer. It has a built-in print-friendly feature.
Denise
Thanks for the awesome blog add-on. Finding the tag to place the code after takes forever, to make it easier, just hit ctrl+f and type in div class=’post-footer’ which will take you to the exact spot you need to post the code.
Thanks for the tip