Using Print Plugins for WordPress

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The ability to print things from your website is very handy. It means that people are not limited to reading your text on a computer. It is actually a continuation of a very old concept, used in the olden days, called a book. Nevertheless, creating a blog that may be printed off (in a print-friendly way) is a handy little tool for your blog readers.

 

Print Plugins for WordPress

 

Bunny Print CSS

You are able to add a print.css file to your WordPress blog so that people may use it, if and when, they wish to print off one of your pages. You can customize the tool to make sure that certain things are not printed off. Sometimes you want to keep snippets of information on your page, so that people have to come back to reference it. If you help them to print that bit of info off, then what is their motivation to come back and check the info on your blog?

 
Pro – You can selectively exclude parts of the page.

 
Con – The reader will probably copy/paste it onto a word pad anyway.

 

WP Print

This is a print-friendly widget. It adds a button that allows a person to print the information off of a page, without having all of the formatting and font details on there. It goes “easy” on the reader’s printer ink. It is a great way of allowing your readers to print hard copies of your information, without them being able to enjoy your fonts, style and layout.

 
Pro – You can add what you wish the reader to print.

 
Con – There are none.

 

Author Highlight

This plug-in lets people print out specific information about the author, with which you can include or exclude things such as contact details or other attributes.

 
Pro – People can print information off about you.

 
Con – Their reasons for wanting hard copy information upon you seems a little disturbing.

 

HP Blog Printing

This plug-in allows the reader to choose what they want to print, instead of leaving it up to the author. This plug-in was created by HP. It allows the reader to leave things such as the sidebar and other features off of the print out. This is handy for the reader because the only other way to pick and choose what to print is to either,

 
a) Copy/paste the text from the printing preview pop up or,

 
b) If it does not let you copy/paste from the print preview section, you are forced to figure out what page your desired info is on, and print that page only.

 
Pro – You are actually putting the reader’s needs before your own.

 
Con – There are not any. You should put the reader first.

 

Dragons Print Hint

 
This shows the print hints that do not show up on the original blog post. The print hints may be added so that they show up on the printed copy. This is sometimes useful when there are a lot of sections to a blog.

 
Pro – Probably useful for novice users.

 
Con – Having to use this plug-in may indicate a problem with your blog’s functionality/simplicity.