Making web pages printable. Please help

[Snorc]

I am fairly new to the web building area and am having a problem that I cant seem to find an answer to. Im hoping someone here can help me. Heres the problem.

I build a website that I would like to make printable but for some reason the colors specified in the tables and cells are not printing correctly. They just come out as the default white background. Ive tried everything I can think of to correct this, including making sure the background color in each sell is correct. I even tried putting a gif image in the background of each cell with no luck. It still prints out as white. Just as a side point, most of the cells have either text or a picture in them.

I hope this make sense to everyone and I really hope someone can help me. Thanks in advance.

 

[Bentley22]

I think this is an actual browser setting, something that you won't have any control over :-(

Unfortunatly, the web is not a print friendly medium!

 

[bamboo]

To add on to Bentley22, you will also find differences printing from variou browsers (IE vs. NS).

What is it they are printing? Online form, coupon, etc.?

-bamboo

 

[ZollerWagner]

The above two responses are probably right. I'd like to explain a bit more.

The backgrounds of pages will print, but only if you select this option in your browser. I believe the default is to not print them, probably to conserve ink and make reading easier.

As a test, you might try putting a regular jpeg or gif in a table cell, not in the background. It should print no matter whether you have the "print backgrounds" setting on or off.

The problem is that your typical viewer won't know this and therefore won't be able to print your backgrounds unless you explain how to switch on "print backgrounds."

Does anyone have a way of providing reliable printable pages? Perhaps by using Adobe Acrobat?