WASHINGTON – Finding information online is easy — you just type a few words into a search engine and hit “enter.”
On the other hand, trying to print what you find can be a time-and-paper-consuming headache.
“Most of us get pretty frustrated when we print something off the Internet and realize we just wasted a bunch of ink printing out ads, navigation, a bunch of useless items,” says Ken Colburn, of the Data Doctors, heard on WTOP.
Colburn says there are some easy solutions to allow you to print just the portions of the webpage you want, and avoid wasting paper and ink on the parts you don’t.
“The first is one is a really cool little plug-in called CleanPrint, and it works with all the major browsers — Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer,” says Colburn.
After choosing a webpage to print, users touch CleanPrint’s green leaf icon on the tool bar, instead of the standard print button.
“It allows you to simply press a button and instantly strip out images, navigation, all the stuff that’s generally useless, so that all you have left is the content that you most likely want to print,” says Colburn.
For times you’re away from your computer — at a friend’s house, or client’s office — but still want to manage what comes out of the printer, Colburn says a website called PrintWhatYouLike lets you pull up a link to any website, and customize what parts are printed.
“Let’s say you want to print a boarding pass for getting on an airplane,” says Colburn. “Instead of printing out the ads, you can select just what you want to print.”
Both CleanPrint and PrintWhatYouLike are free of charge.
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