When printing email don’t use your browser’s print button
I see it time and time again. People printing email from their web-based email accounts like Gmail, Yahoo or AOL and getting frustrated that it doesn't print correctly.
9 times out of 10 it's because they are using the browser's print button instead of the built-in print function included with their Gmail, Yahoo or AOL account.
Incidentally the other 1 out of 10 is due to emails that just don't print well due to their design and layout.
Resist the temptation to use the browser's print button
I wish I could say it's intuitive to use the email's print button but it's not. I mean, the browser's print button is sitting right there staring at you all the time. Why wouldn't you use it? You use it to print everything else on the Internet. Why not use it to print your email as well?
I could go into a technical explanation as to why this is but I'm guessing most of you would do better with a nice illustration. So here goes...
In Gmail, use this to print your email:
In Yahoo, use this to print your email:
In AOL, use this to print your email:
In none of the above cases, should you use this button (shown in Internet Explorer):
2 comments for this blog post so far...
October 05, 2010 at 7:43 am
asudduth
okay getting a little geeky here, but why can’t the web-based mail interfaces just respect the browsers print button? I know of sites that have print layouts (don’t remember exactly how they do it… I know the print-layout has its own CSS that is invoked when you press print… maybe it uses some javascript along with CSS) so why can’t the email providers use this trick so that print doesnt actually print what you see, but what you want? (perhaps a technical limitation, I have one in mind) but surely someone much smarter than you or I could figure this one out!
and thanks for this post… I’ve said it a number of times to people, but its good to have it in print!
October 05, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Patric Welch
@asudduth, excellent, excellent point. Along the same lines, I wish there would be better integration with fat client software that invokes a new email window. They still insist on trying to open Outlook or Windows Mail or whatever your OS mail default is set to. I want it to open my Gmail without having to install Gmail Notifier or any other software.
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