Printing problems with documents [Archive]

design

11-17-2003, 11:39 PM

When I print my documents at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/designengineering/
it cuts off approximately 1/2" to 2" on every page. I did a test. This was the test.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>MISSION STATEMENT</title>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
<link href="styles.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">

I removed <link href="styles.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"> for the first seven pages and I also removed link href=contactstyle.css from the contact style sheet.

With the removal of this line from my eight pages, it was printing normally.

This leads me to believe that the printing problem is in the style sheet and not in the html document.

Please help.

DaveSW

11-18-2003, 11:35 AM

OK if it's a problem within the stylesheet try commenting out individual parts until it works.

/*this line will be ignored color: #111;*/

Then you should be able to work out what line is messing up your code.

design

11-18-2003, 11:56 AM

In addition to updating the documents, I want to know where to post the suggested line. The zip contains the most recent information.

Where should the extra line be posted and how should it be posted to avoid css errors?

DaveSW

11-18-2003, 12:17 PM

What I mean is this:

say you have the code:

h1 {
color: blue;
margin: 0px;
}

You can use the technique shown above to hide one of the lines.

h1 {
color: blue;
/* margin: 0px; */
}

The one lline starting /* and ending */ will be ignored. This means that if it is that line which messes up your css file, it shouldn't affect it. You can then remove the delete the extra bits line by line to find out which line is causing the problem.

Check out www.webdevfaqs.com/css.php and choose 'diagnosing problems with CSS'.

Sorry if I didn't explain that clearly.

design

11-18-2003, 08:16 PM

The H1 properties that are listed here do not change the print preview or the regular printout of the documents. It still cuts off a small portion of each document.

design

11-19-2003, 12:14 AM

Could the table percentages be cause of the printing problem?
If so, what percentages would you recommend?

DaveSW

11-19-2003, 07:03 AM

Ok what I meant is this:

This is a css comment
/* anything between these two is ignored. */

So you can use that, by putting /* at the start of each line and */ at the end of each line, to hide code from the browser.

This means that you hide all the code, and reveal it line by line. When your problem reappears, then you know the line you just removed the comment tags from was the one causing the problem.

The h1 code I provided was an example of how it worked.

Does that help at all?

DaveSW

11-19-2003, 09:49 AM

When you say an inch or so falls off, do you mean it falls off the side or the bottom of the page?

design

11-19-2003, 09:51 AM

The cut off is at the right side of each document.

DaveSW

11-19-2003, 09:52 AM

OK try replacing this line:

<img border="0" src="maroon.jpg" alt="maroonline" width="100%" height="4">

with

<hr style="color: #ffffcc;">

Replace the color code with whatever maroon is. You can also add height:1px; to narrow the line down.

I think the width=100% might be the culprit here.

design

11-19-2003, 10:05 AM

The problem is the paragraph text below the red line and/or the images. It gets cut off approximately 1-1.5" on the right side. The yellow hr did not make a difference. The documents are still showing a cut off at the right.

The following site http://www.erols.com uses similar images to mine and it is able to print normally at 8.5x11. With this fact, and the erols site as a template, what would you recommend for changing?

DaveSW

11-19-2003, 10:24 AM

Testing it on my machine, it works fine with a hr. That's in IE6.

Does this page print ok for you?
http://www.emdevelopments.co.uk/demo/comcast

design

11-19-2003, 10:46 AM

The homepage has a line that is too thin. Printing is fine.
Permits cuts off the closing of the table.
Services cuts off parts of the Checkers image.
Experience cuts off parts of the text instead of continuing on to the next line.
Public Sector cuts off parts of the image.
Private Sector cuts off parts of the image.
Useful Links cuts off the closing of the table.
Contact cuts of parts of the text.

In terms of printing, the only page is close is the homepage.

DaveSW

11-19-2003, 11:23 AM

It sounds like your pages are physically too wide to print. The width="100%" is what screwed up your page for printing by making it too wide, although it prevented the images getting cut off.
The problem now is that you have an image, a block of text, and your menu, and the total width is just too much.

What I would suggest is this:
Instead of using a column for images and a column for the text, use one column for text and images, and float the images to the right.

So your image goes at the top of the column for text, but uses this code:
<img src="someimage.jpg" width="" height="" style="float:right;" alt="">
The text will then flow around the picture.

If that doesn't help, send me a zip file with all the files in it, and I'll try laying it out purely with css.

DaveSW

11-19-2003, 11:24 AM

Also, with regards to the height of the hr tag, simply:
<hr style="color: maroon; height: 3px;">
should do the trick.

design

11-19-2003, 11:29 AM

Supported by
Tag Attribute IE NETSCAPE
COLOR 4,5,6, 4,6
PADDING-TOP LENGTH 4,5,6 4,6
DIV CLAS 4,5,6, 4,6
HR STYLE 4,5,6, 4,6
LINK 4,5,6, 4,6
LINK HREF 4,5,6, 4,6
LINK REL 4,5,6, 4,6
LINK TYPE 4,5,6, 4,6
TABLE SUMMARY NONE NONE
TBODY 4,5,6 6
TD STYLE 4,5,6 4,6

DEI wants all pages to be supported by IE 4+, and Netscape 4+.

This means that Table Summary and Tbody will need to be modified to different tags.

DaveSW

11-19-2003, 11:38 AM

If it doesn't know what they are then it should just ignore them. I actually only ran the code through html-tidy and that inserted the tbody (I assume). I added the summary for browsers which don't support table layouts.

For version 4 support (all 2% of users out there) I'd recommend using the @import rule to hide the floats. I don't think v4 browsers have that great support for them.

So
<style type="text/css">
@import url(float.css);
</style>

And in FLOAT.CSS

.floatright {
float: right;
}

And in the HTML

<img src="" width="" height="" alt="" class="floatright">

design

11-20-2003, 10:06 AM

DEI Management "WANTS" compatiblity with N4 and above.
Similariliy the also "WANT" compatiblity with IE4 and above.

Mangement does not care about IE 3 or N3. The final draft must be compatible with IE 4 and N4. The source of information that we use to determine compatibility is

http://www.netmechanic.com/toolbox/html-code.htm

At your last template site, it had too many IE 4 and N4 incompatibilites.

Please re-write the source codes so it fits onto the page and it is compatible with the version 4 browsers. There is no convincing management to start at a higher browser.

DaveSW

11-20-2003, 10:38 AM

Sure - can you send me a zip file of all the files, so I can work on them with the correct file paths? If I save each page from the internet it will lose your file paths.
Or email me all the files?

Cheers

Dave

design

11-20-2003, 12:18 PM

Dave, I found a document that management wanted me to add into the mission statement. It is in there. The zip include the logo, the revised index file, the maroon line, and the style sheet.

This text is what will be seen on the homepage.

When you working on the homepage, please revise this one, and ignore the last one.

DaveSW

11-20-2003, 12:57 PM

Ok thanks. I'll let you know when it's done, probably tomorrow.

Do you want me to add some menu styles and effects?

design

11-21-2003, 12:21 AM

I do not know what you mean, except possibly style sheets.
I have already sent you two style sheets as part of the zip.
What do you mean by menu styles and effects?

DaveSW

11-21-2003, 09:24 AM

Well, your menu still shows the bullets and the normal colors for a link. These can be changed, and the bullets hidden. Would you like me to do that?

design

11-21-2003, 09:41 AM

In this zip is a red dot. First, I do not want this red dot on my page. I want it to be maroon. Please make the dot maroon. After making it marron colored, than you can remove all of the <ul> and <li> tags associted with the links and replace it with the maroon dot. "DO NOT" replace the dots with what you wanted or this existing dot. If you need to know the color code for maroon, it is R=128, G=0, B=0. The hexidecimal value is #800000. You can alter the existing image, and after alteration of the zipped image you can replace the bullets with the new image.

design

11-21-2003, 12:24 PM

I recenlty removed Netscape 7. I than installed Netscape 4 and did a print of the documents. In 4, the print results are the same. A few minutes later I removed 4 and installed Netscape 6. Netscape 6 correctly prints all documents except for PERMITS and SERVICES. The error in printing was not a cut off, but the fact that the DEI LOGO and the heading PERMITS EXPERIENCE and the maroon line were on one page, and the rest of the document was on the second page. The exact same printing problem occured in SERVICES (SERVICES heading and, maroon line and deilogo one one page, services text starts on next page). The documents were able to fit fine, including those with the images on the right, but only in N7.

I removed N7. Now I only have IE6 on my system. With IE6, all I see is a cut off on the right side.

With this additional info, can you explain the possible problems and resolutions?

DaveSW

11-22-2003, 11:12 AM

Originally posted by design
The error in printing was not a cut off, but the fact that the DEI LOGO and the heading PERMITS EXPERIENCE and the maroon line were on one page, and the rest of the document was on the second page.

That's what happens when you use tables for layout. If the bottom cell is too long to fit on the page it will spill over onto the next.

Would you like me to fix that for you as well? It'll involve a CSS layout which should work in V4 browsers.

I should have time later.

design

11-22-2003, 11:40 AM

Please fix the CSS/HTML documents as necessary so there is no problem with V4 and the table layout as you just described.

DaveSW

11-22-2003, 05:13 PM

OK here's what I have so far. I'm using the @import rule to hide a few extra styles from v4 browsers, which will help liven it up a little for the newer browsers.

I'm going to do a google search for an NN4 2 column layout for a better way to do it.

With regards to your photographs, I believe you'll need to modify your design to make your pages narrow enough to fit.

I suggest using

<div style="text-align:center;">
<img src="image.jpg" alt="dei" + other stuff>
</div>

at the top of each content div.

What do you think so far?