Is your website printer friendly?
Have you ever printed
Have you ever tried to print off a page from a website? Very often it will go all over place, images will be cut off, text messed up, it will often go over several sheets of paper with lots of blank spaces.
Annoying, isn’t it?
It does not have to be that way, however!
Think about it for a moment, why would you want to print off a web page? Well, when you strip a website of all those pretty colours and beautiful images, the header area with the navigation menu, the footer with all the contact details, you just end up with what you went there in the first place… INFORMATION!
Unless we are going to a website for entertainment or buying something, we often just want to know information, first and foremost. On those rare occasions where we want to print off a hard copy, we would just like to have that information in a clear, readable format. If there is an image actually within the main page itself, of course, that is fine because that image would be relevant but the rest of it is, I would suggest, window-dressing.
Have a look at the graphic above. The image on the left is composed of the 4 pages it took to print off the home page of a random web design agency in London that I found on Google. Their actual website looks very nice but the printer-version is, well, you can see for yourself.
On the right, you will see what you get if you go to our own website and print it off. Just the information and none other irrelevant stuff that uses up lots of printer ink!
If you want to know what your own website looks like on a printer, press Ctrl P if you are on a PC or Command P if you are on a Mac. You may get a surprise!
Having a printer-friendly version of your website is also a major website accessibility issue. If you would like to find out more about website accessibility for disabled people, why not come along to my next workshop on November 3rd at 4pm? Please follow this link to book: https://webaccess.live
Access by Design. Beautiful, accessible, web design, Chichester.
