Site print problem

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I suspect the cause of the problem – if your visitors use IE – is the page setup within IE. Typically the defaults are something horrendous like 25mm margins left and right which doesn’t leave much room in between. When they go to print a page, the print width is determined by the widest fixed-width item on the page, and in your case I believe it is the top graphic. (See the attached for where this setting is made.)

I notice also you have set the width for 800 wide screen resolution, as opposed to the expand-to-fit layout of (eg) this web page.

Suggestions:
1] Change the layout of your page so that the width is set as a percentage rather than a fixed width – probably not easy if you want to keep the style and images you have.
2] Create a printable version of the page which does not have the same wide image on it – click on the icon top right of this post to see how the Lounge offers a ‘cleaner’ version to print.
3] Add “How to print this page” instructions – the user needs to reduce their margins or set the page layout to Landscape.

**Edited to add: Note that the page setup for IE affects how Outlook prints by default – set it to Landscape and emails are also printed out in Landscape format…..

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(Edited by Leif to make link live – see the quick guide)

When visitors want to print a page from my site, http://www.microtask.org.uk[/url%5D, they get it all except for a margin on the right side of their page. What should I be doing differently, or extra, to eliminate this problem?

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When you say margin, do you mean a scroll bar?

Most users have learned that when they want to print one frame in a frameset, they should click the frame to be printed first. However, your page gives no hint that it is a frameset, so IE may use its default of printing something more like a page-long screen shot of all frames as composed on the page. You might be able to work around this with a bit of script, say, setting the focus to the lower frame by simulating a click on it, but that’s just a wild idea.

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Tthankyou, friend:
No, I don’t mean the scroll-bar – the printer loses the right edge of the page.
Today I was visiting someone who had exactly the same problem with a local govt. site.
Unlike most sites one comes across, my site seems not to have distinct frames – it’s coded by an affordable DIY program called WebPlus which is limited to a standard-size letter or A4 page, being derived from another affordable program called PagePlus – in effect each page is one frame.

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Tthankyou, friend:
No, I don’t mean the scroll-bar – the printer loses the right edge of the page.
Today I was visiting someone who had exactly the same problem with a local govt. site.
Unlike most sites one comes across, my site seems not to have distinct frames – it’s coded by an affordable DIY program called WebPlus which is limited to a standard-size letter or A4 page, being derived from another affordable program called PagePlus – in effect each page is one frame.

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When you say margin, do you mean a scroll bar?

Most users have learned that when they want to print one frame in a frameset, they should click the frame to be printed first. However, your page gives no hint that it is a frameset, so IE may use its default of printing something more like a page-long screen shot of all frames as composed on the page. You might be able to work around this with a bit of script, say, setting the focus to the lower frame by simulating a click on it, but that’s just a wild idea.

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(Edited by Leif to make link live – see the quick guide)

When visitors want to print a page from my site, http://www.microtask.org.uk[/url%5D, they get it all except for a margin on the right side of their page. What should I be doing differently, or extra, to eliminate this problem?

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Many thanks, Leif:
I’d have replied sooner, but I’ve had agonies trying to get back to the lounge since the server was relocated.
Yes he was using IE and the margins were set to 25 mm each side.
Resetting to 12 left and 6 right gave a perfect output, with or without additional border.

Incidentally, I would like to get rid of the blank inch to the left of the page on the screen, and will go looking for how to change from 800 to expand-to-fit, to see if that achieves the desired result..

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