Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Fit the full URL on Printouts

Sometimes, you want to print out some Web page you’ve found, so you can recommend the site to a friend later. But if the Web address (URL) is a long one, it’s likely to be truncated in the footer of the printed page. That’s because IE, by default, uses a large font and cuts off any of the URL that doesn’t fit on the same line as today’s date.

You can make URLs print in full almost every time by clicking Tools➪Internet Options. On the General tab, click the Fonts button and then select a Web page font that’s more compact than Times New Roman, such as Vista’s Cordia New. (This font, which is similar to Arial, also becomes the default font for Web pages that don’t specify a font.)

If that doesn’t print the entire Web address, give URLs a separate line. To do so, pull down the Printer toolbar and select Page Setup. Enter &b&u in the Header field to devote the full header to the URL (aligned to the right). Then enter &d&b&p in the Footer field to print the date on the left and the page number on the right at the bottom of each page. (This procedure eliminates printing each page’s title, represented by &w. A Web page’s title takes up space that’s best devoted to printing the full URL, in our view.)