Print Selected Material from Web Pages

By Ken Fermoyle

First, as in making Rabbit Stew, you must catch the rabbit! In this case, before you can print sections of text from Web pages you must first select the material, then paste it into an appropriate software program (e.g. WordPad, any word processor, MS Publisher, etc.). Do that by following these steps. (Selecting and Printing graphics is covered toward the end of this article).

1. Select desired text material in the normal manner by setting your cursor at the upper left corner of the text and holding down the left mouse button. Continue holding the button down and drag the cursor to the end of the material you want to select, then release the button. Your selected text should now be highlighted.

2. Go to the Edit Menu at the top of your screen and click on Copy (or use the Control-C keyboard shortcut). If you don't already have the target software application open, open it now via the Start Menu or a shortcut icon on your Desktop. (Let's assume you will use WordPad from the Accessories Group in the Start Menu. It's quick and easy, and everyone who uses Windows 95/98 has it available.)

3. Go to the File Menu and click on New to open a new document.

4. Make sure the blinking insertion pointer (vertical bar) is positioned at the upper left of the blank page.

5. Go to the Edit Menu and click on Paste (or use the Control-V keyboard shortcut). The selected material should now appear on the blank page.

6. Now you can either save the text (using Save As from the File Menu), edit it to reformat some of the text or to remove unwanted material, or print it (by going to the File Menu and selecting Print).

I do this all the time. Frequently, when researching a subject for a future article, I first create a file by following steps 3 and 4, typing in just a title and perhaps a few notes at the top of the page. Then I use File/Save As to give the file a name and save it in an appropriate folder. I visit various Websites, select helpful material and use Copy/Paste (steps 1 through 5) to insert it into the previously created file.

I often use WordPad for this, but MS Word, Word Perfect or some other word processor that offers a Find or Find/Replace function may be preferable if you assemble a large amount of text in a single file. Such software allows you to search for a word or phrase quickly and easily when necessary.

The process for selecting and printing material from e-mail is the same. Follow the same Copy, Paste, Print sequence outlined above.

If you want to print an entire Web page, simply click on the right mouse button anywhere on the page. Select Print from the pup-up menu that appears and follow normal Printing procedure.

If you want to print a picture or other graphic from the Web, do this:

1. Place cursor on designed image.
2. Click right mouse button.
3. Click on Save Picture As
4. Select the drive and folder where you want to store the graphic.
5. Save it under the original name, or give it a new name.

You can then print the graphic by importing it into an appropriate image-editing program (e.g. Windows Paint, Photo Deluxe, Photo Shop, Photo Impact, etc.). Reminder: Web images are normally in low-resolution GIF of JPEG formats so they will not look as good when Printed as BMP, TIFF or other higher resolution images.

A tip here: If you're only interested in printing out the text on a page, just turn off the graphics. In Internet Explorer follow these stops.

1. On the View menu in the browser, click Internet Options.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Select the Multimedia tab, and remove checks in the Show pictures, Play animations, Play videos, and Play sounds check boxes.

This will make Web pages load a lot faster, too. You can always turn the pictures, animations, etc. back on by reversing the procedure.

Actually, what I do is use two browsers an older version of Netscape Navigator with graphics turn off, and a current version of Internet Explorer with all the goodies turned on.
I use Navigator for research and other quick-and-dirty surfing, IE for normal Web wandering when I want to see all the graphics.

Copyright 1999 by Ken Fermoyle, Fermoyle Publications. Ken has written some 2,500 articles for publications ranging from Playboy and Popular Science to MacWeek, Microtimes & PC Laptop. Ken's Korner, a syndicated monthly column, is available free to User Groups. For information or permission to reprint this article, kfermoyle@earthlink.net.