Printing a Web Page.

[goober]

Hello, everyone. I am looking for a simple script to implement on my web site that will let users print my pages (without background colors, more readable, etc.) I am very fluent in scripting languages (ASP, JScript, VBScript, ADO, etc.), so implimentation shouldn't be a problem. Please post a response as this would be a great help to my web site. It would also be intriguiging to know how SitePoint does it themselves (for all you SitePoint Admins out there). Thanks!

[Kevin Yank]

Goober,

Since all of our content resides in a MySQL database, our printable article view is simply a different PHP script that formats the text of our articles appropriately. If you want to discuss this further, however, the conversation would best be moved to the server-side scripting forum.

By looking for a client-side solution I think you'd be making a lot of extra work for yourself...

[iFroggy]

I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about. But, I thought I would try.

<b><font face="Verdana" size="1"><script language="JavaScript">

if (window.print) {
document.write ('<a class=side href="javascript:window.print();"><b><font face="Verdana" size="1">Print This Page</a></font></b></br>')
}
</script>
</font></b>

Good Luck.

[TWTCommish]

I think he was referring to Printer-Friendly Versions of pages, and Kevin's right: it's a bit more complex that that.

Quite simply, you want to have a page, say, "print.php" - on the link to view a printable version on your article page (let's say the URL of the article is "article.php?id=1") - you'd create a link within PHP like this:


echo("<a href=\"print.php?id=$id\">View A Printable Version</a>");

So, in this case, going to the article with an ID of "1" would produce a link leading to "print.php?id=1" - from then on, it's simple: you have the print.php page check for the variable "$id" - and if it exists, grab the corresponding record from whatever database you're using.

Hope this helps.

[sooonernut]

Goober,

This might help. There is an onbeforeprint and onafterprint event in javascript. Here is a url to a tutorial that will tell you how they work.

http://www.wsabstract.com/javatutors/ie5print.shtml

[Justin Sampson]

Hey,
Here's a simple way of doing what you want. On the page you want to print just link to this file. On each page you wan't to be printable just put <!-- body --> and <!-- /body --> around the content. The script then pulls the text and displays the content in anyway you want.

<?php
$lines_array = file("$HTTP_REFERER");

$lines_string = implode('', $lines_array);

eregi("<!-- body -->(.*)<!-- /body -->", $lines_string, $body);

echo $body[0];
?>

[goober]

Hello,

Thanks, but my server does not support PHP, only ASP. Thanks! That leaves VBScript, JavaScript, etc.