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Disabling background for printing text only
#11704 09/09/10 04:58 PM
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I can't seem to find a way to do this. I looked on the canon site and manual and no help. I looked on Safari help and it said:

"To print a webpage: Choose File > Print. To specify the page size, orientation, or scaling, click the disclosure triangle next to the Printer pop-up menu to expand the Print dialog.

To include the background image, open the pop-up menu below the Orientation section, and choose Safari."

I can't find any disclosure triangle on my printer popup menu to get any further. I have a Canon Pixma IP4300. Any ideas? I tried Firefox, too, by going to file, page setup, which was supposed to lead to a box I could uncheck regarding printing backgrounds,(that info was for pc's) but no help once the printer popup menu came up.

Thanks guys.



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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
plantsower #11705 09/09/10 10:57 PM
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If you're running OS X 10.4.11, you won't see a disclosure triangle in a Print dialog; that's a feature which was introduced with 10.5. In Tiger, the Print dialog is already expanded.

What you need to do is to go to the third pop-up menu in Safari's Print dialog (the first two being Printer: and Presets:). By default, this menu is set to Copies & Pages. Set it to Safari (near the bottom of the list). Now you should see a Print backgrounds checkbox.



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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
dkmarsh #11706 09/09/10 11:02 PM
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Thanks, DK. I found it!! But....it was unchecked anyway.

I had previously copy and pasted some text that had a very light yellow background when I pasted it. I didn't notice it before I pasted it because it was so light. So, the yellow printed anyway. Any ideas why? I really hated to waste the ink.


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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
plantsower #11707 09/09/10 11:45 PM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
So, the yellow printed anyway. Any ideas why?

I'll hazard a guess. Assuming Safari and your printer weren't messing up, it sounds like that yellow was part of the page and not of 'the background', so it printed.


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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
alternaut #11708 09/09/10 11:48 PM
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Er... I didn't know there was a difference. Hmmm.. So, I guess that means if the page is a color like yellow or blue or whatever, I can't just copy and print the text? Phooey!!

Thanks for your input.

Rita


Originally Posted By: alternaut
Originally Posted By: plantsower
So, the yellow printed anyway. Any ideas why?

I'll hazard a guess. Assuming Safari and your printer weren't messing up, it sounds like that yellow was part of the page and not of 'the background', so it printed.


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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
plantsower #11709 09/10/10 12:25 AM
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Quote:
I had previously copy and pasted some text...

If I'm understanding you correctly, you copied some text from a web page in Safari and pasted it into another Safari page? What sort of pages were these?



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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
plantsower #11710 09/10/10 12:29 AM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
So, I guess that means if the page is a color like yellow or blue or whatever, I can't just copy and print the text?

I don't think you can generalize. You *should* be able to copy text (e.g., to a word processor) and print just that. If your text is formatted as a graphic that won't work: you'll print the entire graphic including its background, because you cannot separate them at this stage.

If you print the page from within the browser, the browser will follow the current settings and print with or without background, according to how the various elements on the page are coded.


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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
dkmarsh #11711 09/10/10 03:41 AM
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No. I copied the text off of a website and pasted it into a word processing program so I wouldn't have to print all the superfluous information on the webpage.

Rita


Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Quote:
I had previously copy and pasted some text...

If I'm understanding you correctly, you copied some text from a web page in Safari and pasted it into another Safari page? What sort of pages were these?


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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
alternaut #11712 09/10/10 03:42 AM
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OK. I didn't know that the "yellow" was part of a graphic. I've never created a website so don't know much about how that would work. Thanks for that explanation.

Rita


Originally Posted By: alternaut
Originally Posted By: plantsower
So, I guess that means if the page is a color like yellow or blue or whatever, I can't just copy and print the text?

I don't think you can generalize. You *should* be able to copy text (e.g., to a word processor) and print just that. If your text is formatted as a graphic that won't work: you'll print the entire graphic including its background, because you cannot separate them at this stage.

If you print the page from within the browser, the browser will follow the current settings and print with or without background, according to how the various elements on the page are coded.


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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
plantsower #11713 09/10/10 04:13 AM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
No. I copied the text off of a website and pasted it into a word processing program so I wouldn't have to print all the superfluous information on the webpage.

If it's strictly text your interested in (no graphics at all), first paste into a blank "plain text" TextEdit document. Then —once the paste is complete —you can change it to "rich text" and set your font size etc. (and even add pictures, if need be). [note: toggling between plain and rich text is done via TE's Format menu.]

Unfortunately, one side effect of that approach is that the original text style will be lost (though you can add it back manually). I.e., bold text, italic text, underlined text, lists with bullets (or numbers), etc., will be lost during the initial paste into plain text.

--

Another possibility is if the web page provides a "printer friendly" alternative link... but that's not always the case.

Last edited by Hal Itosis; 09/10/10 04:21 AM.
Re: Disabling background for printing text only
plantsower #11716 09/10/10 09:33 AM
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Quote:
No. I copied the text off of a website and pasted it into a word processing program...

Then whether the Print backgrounds checkbox in Safari's Print dialog is checked or not is irrelevant, since that only determines what happens when printing in Safari.

Is it possible that what you copied and pasted wasn't text at all, but rather a picture of text? If you go to, say, Apple's Mac mini Design page and select what appears to be the text Amazing from any angle., then right-click or control-click on the selection, you'll see that what you've selected isn't text but an image. Depending on your word processing software, copying and pasting such an image may insert the image into the word processing document, furthering the illusion that you've copied and pasted text.



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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
Hal Itosis #11743 09/10/10 10:58 PM
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"Hal":

I tried an experiment. I pulled up one of my word processing programs (Bean). I couldn't find anything that said "rich text." I pasted it in and it was yellow regardless.

I pulled up my Text Edit program and couldn't find anything that said "rich Text" so I pasted it in anyway, and it was yellow.

I pulled up Appleworks and couldn't find anything that said "rich text" but when I pasted it, it wasn't yellow!!! It kind of automatically deleted the background for some reason. Maybe it's in "rich text" and I just can't tell. But because of all this and your input, I know now that I can just use Appleworks for some of this stuff and not have to worry about the background color. So, thanks!!!

Rita


Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
Originally Posted By: plantsower
No. I copied the text off of a website and pasted it into a word processing program so I wouldn't have to print all the superfluous information on the webpage.

If it's strictly text your interested in (no graphics at all), first paste into a blank "plain text" TextEdit document. Then —once the paste is complete —you can change it to "rich text" and set your font size etc. (and even add pictures, if need be). [note: toggling between plain and rich text is done via TE's Format menu.]

Unfortunately, one side effect of that approach is that the original text style will be lost (though you can add it back manually). I.e., bold text, italic text, underlined text, lists with bullets (or numbers), etc., will be lost during the initial paste into plain text.

--

Another possibility is if the web page provides a "printer friendly" alternative link... but that's not always the case.


MacBook Pro - M2, Ventura 13.6
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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
dkmarsh #11745 09/10/10 11:01 PM
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Thanks, DK. Darn those illusions anyway!!! Rita



Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Quote:
No. I copied the text off of a website and pasted it into a word processing program...

Then whether the Print backgrounds checkbox in Safari's Print dialog is checked or not is irrelevant, since that only determines what happens when printing in Safari.

Is it possible that what you copied and pasted wasn't text at all, but rather a picture of text? If you go to, say, Apple's Mac mini Design page and select what appears to be the text Amazing from any angle., then right-click or control-click on the selection, you'll see that what you've selected isn't text but an image. Depending on your word processing software, copying and pasting such an image may insert the image into the word processing document, furthering the illusion that you've copied and pasted text.


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Re: Disabling background for printing text only
plantsower #11747 09/10/10 11:34 PM
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If you don't already know about it, you might want to check out Plain Clip (free/donationware). This is a small utility you drag into the Dock. After you copy text from any source, you can strip all formatting from it just by clicking on Plain Clip's Dock icon. You can then paste it anywhere you like, and you would not be limited to AppleWorks (not that there's anything wrong with that). There are several other options, but this basic function alone makes Plain Clip worth having. I use it almost every day.


alternaut moderator
Re: Disabling background for printing text only
alternaut #11749 09/11/10 03:50 AM
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Oh my gosh, that's good to know. Thank you!!!

Rita



Originally Posted By: alternaut
If you don't already know about it, you might want to check out Plain Clip (free/donationware). This is a small utility you drag into the Dock. After you copy text from any source, you can strip all formatting from it just by clicking on Plain Clip's Dock icon. You can then paste it anywhere you like, and you would not be limited to AppleWorks (not that there's anything wrong with that). There are several other options, but this basic function alone makes Plain Clip worth having. I use it almost every day.


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