Stop Printing Web Page Backgrounds

Question

Is there a way to tell my printer to ignore web page background images?

Answer

This question was answered on November 10, 2006. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

Most web pages are not designed with printing in mind. The printed web page may be surprisingly different from what you saw on the screen. Text may wrap differently on paper than on the screen. Part of a wide page may not be printed at all. You may also notice that printing web pages can take a tremendous amount of time and ink on a web page with a busy background image.

Well, you can set things up so that those ink sucking web backgrounds aren't printed. Here's how:

With Internet Explorer:

1. Click the Tools menu, Options, and select the Advanced tab.

2. Scroll down to the "Printing" category. Make sure the box for printing backgrounds is NOT checked. Then click OK.

That's it. If you were printing out backgrounds before, this should take care of the problem. Conversely, if you want the backgrounds, make sure that little box is checked.

With Firefox & Netscape:

1. Click File, Page setup...

2. Make sure the "Print backgrounds" box is unchecked.

That's it. If you were printing out backgrounds before, this should take care of the problem. Conversely, if you want the backgrounds, make sure

that little box is checked.

Author

Posted by Chad of Data Doctors on November 10, 2006