Add Printer Friendly Capability With Flexible Page Printing


PrintPrint Friendly

Printfriendly.com offers a free widget that will add a printer friendly icon to any type of website or blog.

If a visitor wishes to print a page and clicks the icon, it will open a dialogue where they can add or remove paragraphs and images from the information before it is printed. (You can click the printer friendly icon at the top of this post to see how it works.)

 

Screen Shot

Printer Friendly Screen Shoot

It’s easy to install, only requiring a couple minutes to setup. Works in Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, zen cart, oscommerce, etc.

If you have a wordpress website, I don’t recommend downloading the plugin, because it will add the print friendly link at the bottom of a page. I find that most visitors will click the print friendly icon at the top of a page, instead of looking way down at the bottom.

I am also against adding plugins to wordpress that can easily be added in with minimal effort.

More Plugins = Slower Wordpress website loading.

To add the code to a wordpress blog, just follow these simple steps.

  1. Go to http://www.printfriendly.com/button
     
  2. Under Site Type, Make sure you have a dot for Website, and not Wordpress. (By selecting wordpress it will take you to the Plugin download.)
     
  3. Customize your print button and then Copy the Embed Code at the bottom.
     
  4. Login into the admin area of wordpress
     
  5. Click on Appearance Menu
     
  6. Click Editor
     
  7. Then find Single Post (Sinple.php) on the right hand side, and click on it
     
  8. Look through the code and find h2><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2
     
  9. After /h2> – add or paste the copied code from Printfriendly website.
     
  10. Save the file, and the new icon should appear on your website.

If you wish to add a space between your article titles and the Printer friendly icon, then go back to single.php and add  *br* (use < > for the *) before the Printerfriendly code.

You can add this code to your main index page, but I recommend keeping the code on single article pages. If a visitor wants to print out a page they will print out just an article, not the entire front page area, archive list, or search pages, so it’s pointless putting it on the main page.

If you have any problems implementing this code, feel free to leave a comment here, or on the forum.

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This entry was written by and posted on May 27, 2009 at 5:53 am and filed under Blogging, How To. Bookmark the permalink.


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  • Hi this is Taylor from PrintFriendly. We love the post, and the hack for the WordPress plugin!

    Let me know if there's anything we can do to support. We are also thinking about adding a "send to phone" button. Wondering if you would like that?

    Cheers!
  • @Taylor Norrish, Send to phone might work for smaller post or individual images. But for longer post it would not be good a idea. Reading a long post or scrolling through a lot of images can be a bit tedious and painful on the eyes.

    I don't know how hard it would be to add to your program, but look into adding an Email This button.

    The share and Save social marking software I use on my website, among with the others I have used, offer an Email a friend button. But when you use that function, it only sends an email link to the website.

    I would like to offer the ability to my readers to email entire articles with a link back to the original articles, preferably at the top, bottom, or both.
  • Hi this is Taylor from PrintFriendly. We love the post, and the hack for the WordPress plugin!

    Let me know if there's anything we can do to support. We are also thinking about adding a "send to phone" button. Wondering if you would like that?

    Cheers!
  • @Taylor Norrish, Send to phone might work for smaller post or individual images. But for longer post it would not be good a idea. Reading a long post or scrolling through a lot of images can be a bit tedious and painful on the eyes.

    I don't know how hard it would be to add to your program, but look into adding an Email This button.

    The share and Save social marking software I use on my website, among with the others I have used, offer an Email a friend button. But when you use that function, it only sends an email link to the website.

    I would like to offer the ability to my readers to email entire articles with a link back to the original articles, preferably at the top, bottom, or both.
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