How to print part of a web page

Launch a web browser and visit www.printwhatyoulike.com. This provides access to an online editor that can remove parts of web pages to make them easier to print and to save ink. If you want, the web address (or URL) of the required page can be typed straight into the box labelled ‘Enter a URL’. Alternatively, and probably faster, launch the website from a bookmark, highlight its address in the browser’s Address or Location bar, right-click and choose Copy from the pop-up menu. Now return to the Print What You Like tab and use the Ctrl and V keyboard shortcut to paste the URL into the Enter a URL field – we’re visiting www.bbc.co.uk. Click the green Start button.

This opens the web page editor. The left-hand pane contains the editing tools while the right-hand area displays the chosen web page. Move the mouse pointer over different parts of the web page and they will be highlighted with a red border. Rest the pointer on an image and the picture will be highlighted. Click the highlighted object to see a toolbar showing possible actions: click the button marked Remove to delete the picture from the editor.

Repeat with the other parts of the page that need to be excluded from the print-out. Alternatively, one item can be quickly isolated for printing out: just select it and choose Isolate from the toolbar. To increase the size of the selected area, click the Select More button. If this expands the selection too much choose Select Less and click each part of the page to include in the selection.

The Page Properties section in the left-hand pane provides several fast-track ways to simplify web pages for printing. To remove the background, for instance, select the Hide radio button next to Background. Select Hide next to images to remove all graphical content from the page. Do the same for Margins to get rid of the white space around sections of text. This helps to fit more words onto a single page of print. Here, we’ve removed everything bar the text. To restore any of these elements just choose Show instead of Hide.

What looks fine on screen doesn’t necessarily reproduce well in print. To improve the readability of a print-out it might be sensible to change the font style and the text size. Some fonts bunch up better to fit more words on a page, while others are much easier on the eye. In the Page Properties section of the left-hand pane, choose a font from the dropdown menu. Selecting Default will revert to the website’s original font. Use the plus (‘+’) and minus (‘-’) buttons to enlarge or shrink the text.

To print the edited page click the Print button in the left-hand pane and then select the printer and other print options in the usual way. If you want, the edited page can be saved for later use. Click Save as and then choose either PDF or HTML format, as desired.