Print-friendly links when possible

January 30, 2003 12:53 PM

blah blah woof woof--this is my nit to pick:

What is so hard about the concept of user friendly easier to read links? Printer friendly, where available, should be the default.
I assumed this was a given but perhaps if it were added to the explicit posting canon? It's a no brainer, folks.
posted by y2karl to etiquette/policy at 12:53 PM (32 comments total)

Is it fair to link to a printer-friendly page on an advertiser-funded site? Wasn't there a discussion about this a few months ago?
posted by timeistight at 1:02 PM on January 30, 2003

I hate printer pages, the text is always too wide, and usually unformatted. I prefer to see it the way the paper intended, in full formatting? (also the reason I prefer to read weblogs on their sites instead of via RSS, since it is void of any design)
posted by mathowie at 1:04 PM on January 30, 2003

Ok, y2karl, I'll consider myself chastened on that one, but in my defense, I sort of liked the accompanying graphic, and didn't want to leave it out.

p.s. I also read Jon earlier this week - hope you enjoyed it as much as I did...
posted by lilboo at 1:14 PM on January 30, 2003

Point taken and thanks for the tip.
posted by y2karl at 1:15 PM on January 30, 2003

Oh, my misunderstanding--yes, yes, I read it and loved it.
Thanks so much for posting it--I've sent it on to several friends.
posted by y2karl at 1:18 PM on January 30, 2003

Printer versions often leave out images and other graphics, as is in the case of the NYTimes. I think "Single Page View" wherever possible is ideal, but I agree with Matt that the page should be viewed in context of the site design.
posted by PrinceValium at 2:15 PM on January 30, 2003

I'm with mathowie all the way on this one - people and organisations spend lots of sweat and/or money on presenting their information in the best possible way (in their eyes, at least) and a few provide a printer page as well, because the best way to present the information differs depending on whether it is presented on screen or paper. Perhaps an alternative would be to include the printer-friendly pages as alternative links, where available, for those who like their words sans design?
posted by dg at 2:23 PM on January 30, 2003

"It's a no brainer, folks."

What about this is a no brainer? Really. I'm asking. It seems to me that your "reader friendly" version is actually much harder to read. Isn't this why print magazines use multiple columns? Isn't it well established that narrow columns are easier to read? And please explain how the "ad laden" version is harder to read. Please.
posted by y6y6y6 at 2:25 PM on January 30, 2003

Personally, I'd rather see the regular page and have the option of viewing the printer-friendly version. Many printer-friendly pages don't offer a link to the normal version of the page.
posted by rcade at 2:31 PM on January 30, 2003

It seems to me that your "reader friendly" version is actually much harder to read. Isn't this why print magazines use multiple columns? Isn't it well established that narrow columns are easier to read?

i have to agree with this wholeheartedly: i'm set at a high resolution and hate having to read liquid sites that take up the whole screen...

sorta like metafilter (jk). actually, metafilter could be squished in a little but the font is nice and big so it's not nearly as bad as those 'reader friendly' links up top.
posted by poopy at 2:46 PM on January 30, 2003

i have to agree with this wholeheartedly: i'm set at a high resolution and hate having to read liquid sites that take up the whole screen...

You could always run your favorite browser as a window that doesn't take up the whole screen...
posted by bshort at 3:15 PM on January 30, 2003

yeah, but i'm too stubborn and like to have windows maximized...glutton for punishment i guess.
posted by poopy at 3:31 PM on January 30, 2003

Isn't it well established that narrow columns are easier to read?

Care to source that? And is this onscreen or in magazines?

I have the beginnings of macular degeneration and I am losing my fine vision. On a small screen, which is what I have, many printer friendly pages have text larger that on the original screen and I guess it's my preference to not see ads...

--it's a signal to noise thing for me, I guess, especially with the bells and whistles of flash animations and tiny pictures cluttering things up--

and not read narrow columns that require a lot of scrolling to get through.

Also, in newspaper columns, you have a format of one and two sentence paragraphs that are shorter and choppier than those in the text on the page of a book.

Oh, the New Yorker writes in columns, true, but the text to ad ratio in terms of visible space is tilted far more towards the ads online. And with the magazine, it's in your hands and you can move it closer and all that. A one column ad surrounded on screen text is nothing like columns on a page.

Is it fair to link to a printer-friendly page on an advertiser-funded site?

Is it fair to own a Tivo--aren't you ripping off the cable networks or your local tv stations if you use one to avoid looking at ads?

I prefer to see it the way the paper intended, in full formatting?

Is it fair then to use a pop up blocker and deprive the people and organisations [who] spend lots of sweat and/or money on presenting their information in the best possible way (in their eyes, at least) ? I mean, they intended to pop up those little fuckers, didn't they?

My small screen and my lessening ability to read small print is the main reason I don't read blogs--most have microscopic type that's too hard to read.

Like I'm going to waste the valuable seconds remaining in my life to decipher virtual navel lint with font and punctuation the size of the larger paramecia and amoebae.

It's like reading the notes from an original vinyl record cover that have been shrunk to fit within a jewel case when it's reissued on CD.

(Savoy Jazz does this all the time--I have a Big Maybelle collection originally on a double album. They photographed the original cover art with the copious notage in orange on pink.)

I'm afraid I'm heading into big print territory, which I hate, on my way to quite possibly going blind like my father did, which I dread. Squinting at a screen surely is no good for it.

I don't mind columns so much where the text is larger, like at the New Republic or Counterpunch.

Also I read very fast, scan in blocks and it's not continous but more overlapped in leaves--it's not like reading aloud. My eyes jump back and forth and when you have text in a narrow column you have to scroll, you read in sound bites, little kiblets and it's like looking through the bottom of a bottle.

I prefer the printer friendly versions I linked because they are so much easier for me to read at the rate of flow I prefer. There's more text on screen, it's more like the page of a book, I can take in a paragraph at a time.
posted by y2karl at 3:53 PM on January 30, 2003

i hear you y2karl with the whole small text thing (although i'm a big fan of some design sites that use small text) and ads.

but forgetting about the ads and font size for a moment:

there is a very significant reason why web sites control the width of their text for the same reasons that newspapers and books do: long lines of text are noticably harder to read than shorter ones. i forget the measurements in print but the most legible format is something like 6in. in length. this is why most books are of a certain size and why newspapers - which are much longer - are split into columns.

you have a smaller screen (and res. i assume) so text that takes up the entire width probably looks fine. other people (like me) might have bigger screens and higher resolutions so a full-width line of text can be over 10in in length.
posted by poopy at 4:25 PM on January 30, 2003

Hmm... most non-printer-friendly pages have a link to the printer-friendly version, while the converse is not true. Given that there are people who prefer the "normal" version of some pages, it seems like the smallest total hassle across the entire population comes from linking to those "normal" pages.
posted by jaek at 4:33 PM on January 30, 2003

y2karl, if you prefer the printer friendly page, why not just click on the appropriate link? I appreciate your remarks about vision (I don't have it yet but presbyopia is breathing down my neck), but there are many ways around eye-unfriendly text formatting.

On preview, what jaek said
posted by TedW at 4:42 PM on January 30, 2003

Yeah, well, jaek and Ted W, I see your points, I guess.
Sort of...
posted by y2karl at 4:47 PM on January 30, 2003

Speaking of things, did I miss the discussion on why MetaFilter text isn't resizable in Internet Explorer (View-Text Size-Larger, etc)? That would be my dream.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:22 PM on January 30, 2003

I'm not crazy about printer pages either

A thinner column like the NYorker page, for example, is easier to read. You just have to scroll down a ittle

one-page format is cool, but printer's not really, for me
posted by matteo at 5:48 PM on January 30, 2003

why MetaFilter text isn't resizable in Internet Explorer

You're kidding right? It's all set in points, specifically so that windows IE could always resize easily. Also, you have font control in your preferences on the customize page. Set them to whatever looks best, and the entire site should follow.
posted by mathowie at 5:49 PM on January 30, 2003

I hate printer-friendly pages, unless I'm actually using them to print (for when I need reading material on the subway.) Large amounts of black text on a white background works on paper but not on a screen, IMHO. I'd rather have the option of choosing, so I'd rather have the link to the normal page and then click through to the printer version if I need it.

The only really obnoxious sites are the ones (like Salon) where an article is spread out over multiple pages. Those beg to be printed out and read on the subway.
posted by Vidiot at 5:58 PM on January 30, 2003

The new version of Opera (7.0) is out, and pretty groovy, and features a zoom thingo that works a treat, and may help you with the small-print issue where IE's font resizing doesn't, Karl.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:28 PM on January 30, 2003

The only really obnoxious sites are the ones (like Salon) where an article is spread out over multiple pages. Those beg to be printed out and read on the subway.

of course now we're just delving into user preference but i have to admit that i like salon's site. i've always believed in the mantra of balance: scrolling is ok but if i have to scroll too much then i'm immediately put off (much like y2karl's problem which is odd considering the amount of scrolling required on mefi). then again, there's always the 'page down' key.

i guess that's the big dilemma with the web: it's not like print where you have complete control how different people will view your content so you have to come up with the best solution possible for your audience. you're never going to get it right with everyone but you try to do your best.

personally, when i want to read lots of text, i prefer fixed-width sites to liquid. a site that has it's width set to a percentage rather than pixels is going to adjust nicely to the user's resolution and moniter size, but that itself presents problems for those users that are running on bigger monitors and higher resolutions where the content is so much longer than what they would prefer. yeah, i could adjust my resolution and resize my window but i'd rather not. look at the majority of news sites: they're fixed, and i think there's a good reason for it.
posted by poopy at 6:52 PM on January 30, 2003

You're kidding right? It's all set in points, specifically so that windows IE could always resize easily.

I've see cases where using points for fonts still won't resize so I just opened the mefi homepage in IE to check that and the text size won't change no matter what you set it to in IE.

I'm using IE 6 on Windows 2000. Not logged in to Mefi.

Mozilla might be big and fat but at least it makes pages look right.
posted by Foaf at 7:25 PM on January 30, 2003

Do you have an example Foaf?

(after all the tests I've done it seems that x-small > xx-large are the only font size measurements that work across browsers - everything else bugs out in IE3)
posted by holloway at 7:53 PM on January 30, 2003

Printer friendly, where available, should be the default.

Bollocks. Printer-friendly is for printing, the regular version is for reading. You want the printfriendly page, click on the damn link.

It's a no brainer, folks.

Er, no, it's your opinion. So sorry that Metafilter is not set up to run according to your preferences.
posted by sennoma at 8:09 PM on January 30, 2003

Speaking of Opera 7, this textbox into which I'm currently typing appears waaaay over on the right of the window in that browser, but over in the blue, it's OK (on the left). Just thought I'd mention it.

(Err, and on preview I notice that it also appears on the left, where it ought to be. )
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:19 PM on January 30, 2003

y2karl: I thought you were old enough to have been around in the pre-web days, when this sort of thing was commonly understood by anyone who did graphics production. I know I learned it back in the 1970s, when we had to do this stuff with an exacto knife and letraset. Preferably piles and piles of Cooper Black, of course, it being the 70s.

Line Length is Critical to Legibility:
We old print people tend to be a little bossy about this subject. There is an optimum line length for perfect legibility in print, approximately 10-12 words per line (font shape and size differences can require this rule to be adjusted). That will seem very restrictive, but pick up a few books and magazines and count. Special layouts with extra white space, or some fonts do allow the rules to be broken occasionally, but as a rule, you will not see much variation on this standard. ;

Typography Tools for Emphasis, Contrast, and Legibility:
Text width: Legibility studies show that the ideal column width is about 36 characters, or 1-1/2 times the alphabet. Small amounts of text can be placed in narrower columns.;

Typography:
Using our newspaper example we can see another problem with web design compared with print media. There is a reason newspapers and magazines break text up into columns. It is much easier on the eye to span a short column than to read across an entire page. As a general rule, I try to keep 10-14 words (30 - 70 characters) per column. One way of doing this is to place your text into defined columns within tables.;

Peachnet Web Design Resources:
Keep line length short: no more than 100 characters per line for body text, or 40-50 characters per line for columns.

Lately, I've been told point blank that liquid columns that spread across the entire umpty-teen inches of the screen are best -- but if you think about the time your eye takes to scan back from the right to the left for each line, and the times your eye actually gets lost, you'll see the point. Sure, I can see why some folks would prefer to link to a printer-friendly page, especially those who see advertising as cruft, but I don't. (And I find the times that it brings up a print dialog -- one which I must manually dismiss before reading -- far more annoying than any banner ad.) The question is by no means settled for all readers.
posted by dhartung at 9:01 PM on January 30, 2003

Why thanks, dhartung, for the links.

As for you, sennoma, your comment is essentially a doublepost:
all your points have been made by previous posters in this thread, and if you'd bother to read all the way through instead of speeding down here to take your little shot you would have seen that and the fact that I had gotten it.

Or are you just having a mood swing?
posted by y2karl at 9:29 PM on January 30, 2003

Or are you just having a mood swing?

Huh?

I propose that all fonts be viewed in Young-Hae-Chang-ese.
posted by hama7 at 4:44 AM on January 31, 2003

Print Friendly usually means poor on screen readability... It's a no brainer ;)
posted by madmanz123 at 2:46 PM on January 31, 2003

dhartung:

Yours is not an acceptable post. It is full of informative, interesting links and does not mention bush, palestine or pancakes. Please conform.
posted by skyscraper at 6:41 PM on January 31, 2003