Let Your Visitors "Print This Page"
Expert Author
Article Date: 2003-08-15
A fantastic way to remind your site visitors to come back and visit you is by offering them a quick way to print a page that they can read offline later at their convenience. I personally do this printing process myself, when I am limited to the amount of time I have to read information on a web site thoroughly.
When I get a few minutes later, I take along a handful of printed items wherever I'm going, and read it whenever I can, ie. waiting in the dentist office, waiting in traffic (at a standstill, of course), waiting for my haircolor to cover the gray, waiting for etc-etc.
To add this nice little feature to your web page, all you need to do is place a snippet of JavaScript code with a text link into your web page. To draw attention to your Print this Page link, simply add a printer icon nearby. Remember that content truly is king, but it does not hurt to add some visual effects for those folks who are visually oriented especially when the graphic files are so small it does not inhibit page load time.
To get your web site visitors' printer properties box to popup when they click a "Print This Page" link, use the code below where you would normally put the hyperlink to a page:
javascript:print()
How the source code looks with a hyperlink:
<a href="javascript:print()">Print this Page</a>
How the source code looks with an image:
<a href="javascript:print()"><img src="print.gif" border="0" alt="name of image"></a>
About the Author:
BasicTemplates.com designs Website Templates with External CSS and has been providing webmasters worldwide with affordable template designs since 1994. BasicTemplates currently offers 650+ designs which may be purchased individually or get complete access to all templates via an affordable membership plan. Most templates were strategically designed with interchangeable graphics and elements to increase the potential number of design layouts for the end user. Each layout utilizes an external style sheet for easy site maintenance and to ensure fast page load.
