How to Make Your WordPress Website Print Friendly

Different people have different preferences when it comes to reading online content. Most are happy to read content on a laptop, PC, tablet or mobile device. However, there are still many individuals who prefer to print out the contents of a WordPress website and read the physical copy of this content. It’s not something most website owners or website designers do themselves, but you should be aware of how printer friendly your website is. If it’s not as printer friendly as it should, there are ways to change this so that people who print out your content have as good a user experience as those who view your content on a screen.

How to Make Your WordPress Website Print Friendly

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Add Printing Code to Pages and Posts

Adding the code for a print button to a WordPress page or post is the most basic way to make your website more print friendly. You can easily access the code that runs your WordPress theme and add this code where you want the button to appear. Users simply press this button and the page gets printed.

Write Your Own CSS

If you have CSS coding skills or know a developer who has these skills, you can add code that makes pages and posts print friendly. This can be a bit more complicated than installing and activating a plugin. You have to do your own quality checks, test the changes and make sure your changes don’t affect any other part of your WordPress website. However you have more control over the process and can customize your website more.

Install a Print Friendly Plugin

The WordPress community are always creating and improving WordPress plugins. Various plugins have been developed to ensure that your pages and posts are print friendly. Like any plugin you should check that it safe to install. When you find a reliable print friendly plugin, you simply search for it in the WordPress Admin area, install it and activate it. Most of these plugins can be configured to suit your requirements. Once activated, share buttons appear below or above your content, depending on your preference. These share buttons let visitors share your content on social media websites, let you send content to a PDF or let you print a physical copy of the content.

If you send content to a PDF file you can save it in this format and print it later. This option also lets you easily share your content with others. The recipients of the PDF can then print the content using their own printer.

A WordPress website owner needs to address all of the needs of their website visitors. Some visitors prefer to print out website content for various reasons. They are not worried about additional printing expenses such as replacement toners or HP fuser kits. Unfortunately many WordPress websites are not print friendly and this can be a major inconvenience for your visitors. However, adding the appropriate print code, installing a print-friendly plugin or writing your own print-friendly CSS will address this problem and prevent visitors from going elsewhere to find the same information you provide.