398th 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. Testing has taken place using Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 and Firefox for PCs and Safari 4.0 and Firefox 3.5 for Macs. The most problems occur with Internet Explorer 6.

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. Crew and Aircraft Photos

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. An example is our 398th Bomb Group Purple Heart Award List. In my tests, Firefox 3.5 handled the printing of these tables very well. For Safari 4, it was necessary to print in landscape mode to improve the look. Internet Explorer 8 for the PC has a very nice set of % reduction choices that worked well into getting 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 these 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.

Crew and Aircraft Photos

Some may find the most difficult pages to print are the Crew or the Aircraft Photo pages. An example is the Hopkins' Crew Photo. Part of the reason is that the images are rather large (in general 864 pixels wide) and need to be shrunk by your software to fit on the page. The large size was chosen so that detail could be brought out in the photos in your browser. With this size, rivets on the aircraft, rings on fingers and details of the men's faces and clothing can be seen on many photos.

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

Printing Crew or Aircraft Photos from PCs

Better results occur with newer browsers but can also depend on having an updated operating system and sometimes a newer printer or updated printer driver for your older printer.

  1. Internet Explorer (version 5): With Internet Explorer 5, the crew and aircraft photos will proportionally decrease to fit the size of your printed page, including portrait mode. Unlike Explorer for the Mac (see below), there are no controls under Print Preview to Shrink Pages to Fit or to make the text smaller or smaller. However, there should be a scaling option under your Page Setup option which may help if the text doesn't show under the picture. Try practicing on the Hopkins' Crew Photo. This solution was tested on Windows 2000. Explorer 5 is a fairly old browser and may not render pages appropriately and you should have better results with IE6, IE 7, or IE8.
  2. Internet Explorer (version 6): I have not been able to fully test, but the solution may be the same as Internet Explorer 5.
  3. Internet Explorer (version 7): Perform a Print Preview, then Shrink to Fit. You can also experiment with various scales. Around 70% is about right for the Crew Photos.
  4. Internet Explorer (version 8): Not tested
  5. Downloading the Image: If you are 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. You can download the picture from the web site by right-clicking and saving the picture in a folder such as My Pictures. The picture is in jpeg format and then can be opened in your photo editor, adjusted and then printed. Typical photo editors are Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and your built-in Paint program (found under Accessories).
  6. Using Window Paint: Open the downloaded jpeg picture in Windows Paint. Then under Print, click on Print Preview. If the picture looks too big try the orientation landscape. If that doesn't work, select all, go to Image, Stretch/Skew, and change both horizontal and vertical options to the same percentages, then go back and check Print Preview again.

Printing Crew or Aircraft Photos Macs

Better results occur with newer browsers but can also depend on having an updated operating system and sometimes a newer printer or updated printer driver for your older printer.

  1. Safari Browser (version 3): From Safari choose Print then Preview. This action will open up the Preview application and you will see what fits on the page. If all the text you wish to have on a page does not fit or doesn't look right, then you need to go back to Safari and under the View Menu select Make Text Smaller one or more times until what you need fits. You will need to do a new Print Preview each time. One can also experiment with the various View options in Preview; however, I have found it best to make text size adjustments in Safari as mentioned above. Try it on the Hopkins' Crew Photo for practice.
  2. Downloading the 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. To do this in Safari, either: 1) drag the image to your desktop, or 2) control click the image and choose Save Image to Download. The picture is in jpeg format and then can be opened in your photo editor, adjusted and then printed. Typical photo editors are Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Apple's iPhoto.