My former boss used to ask me to print articles he has read online. What I always did was to copy and paste the article to Microsoft Word and print it. It was tedious since I have to resize the font, delete the images and other unnecessary phrases and paragraphs, set the spaces and other things before printing in order to save paper and ink while at the same time make the printout readable. I could not immediately resort to the traditional CTRL+P because the headers, sidebars, footers, banners, graphics, ads and other clutters of the websites will also be printed, wasting only paper and ink.  

I found out later that there's a smart way print web pages and that is by using printfriendly.com. Print Friendly cleans and formats web pages for perfect print experience. It removes ads, navigation, and web page junk, so you save paper and ink when you print. With Print friendly, printing web pages becomes so easy. Since then, I am using print friendly to print web pages.


How to print web pages using print friendly

To print a web page, all you need to do is:

1. Visit printfriendly.com.

2. Copy and paste the URL of the article you want to print in print friendly and click "print preview".

3. Mouse over and remove the items and images you don't want to print.

4. Click print.

Here's a short video on how to do it:




Print friendly Chrome Extension

If you regularly print web pages, I suggest you add the print friendly chrome extension. It will make your printing experience more easier as all you need to do is click the icon in your Chrome toolbar and immediately you are going to get a preview of the article you will be printing. You can then mouse over, resize the font, delete any paragraphs or images you don't want, and print. You can also create a PDF and/or e-mail the pages. If you are using Firefox, Safari or other browsers, navigate the other tabs in the link above for the installation instruction.

If you are a blogger, you may add a print friendly button to you site, so that your readers will just click it whenever they want to print your article. Click this link to get the button.

Printfriendly is free and easy to use. It is perfect to use at home, in the office, or whenever you need to print a web page. It will save you time, paper and ink. Give it a try it!