Search KU Libraries Web Search KU Web Search KU People Search KU Events Search KU Info

Web Printing & Saving Tips

Table of Contents

Laser printing in the Libraries | General printing tips | Printing a section of a web page | Printing frames (including Blackboard) | Light text on a dark background | Marking / Tagging multiple records | Downloading / Saving records | PDF documents

Laser printing in the Libraries

You must have a KU card/ library borrower card to laser print. You can add value to your KU Card to pay for printing. Free dot matrix printers are available at some express workstations.

1. Open the print dialog box, choose a printer and click Print.
2. If you have logged onto the computer with your KU Online ID (portal ID):
   Choose the Print option.
   Verify that you want to pay the amount listed for the selected job and click Print.
   If you did not log onto the computer:

Choose the Print option.
Verify that you want to pay the amount listed for the selected job and click Print.
Enter the 16-digit ISO number from your KU Card/library borrower card and click OK.
3. Pick up your print job at the chosen printer.

General printing tips

1. Whenever possible, use the print feature provided by the database (not just the browser print) or the printer-friendly version of a web page . Always choose to reformat for printing if this is an option. You may also be given choices about what information appears in the records you save (e.g., citation, abstract, full record).
2. If you are not using a database with special print options, you will need to use the browser’s print function.
3. If you can't get one browser to print the page properly, try a different browser.

Printing a section of a web page

1. Under the browser File menu, choose Print Preview.  From this screen you can see what page numbers contain the information you wish to print.  You can then enter the appropriate page numbers in the browser print box before printing.

OR

2. Highlight the text you wish to print.  From the File menu, choose Print (don't use the print button on the browser toolbar). In the browser print box, choose Selection, and click Print.

Printing frames (including Blackboard)

1. Make sure to click in the frame containing the desired information before clicking the Print button. Blackboard often has a very small frame located above the frame containing the main information that you want to print.
2. Use File--Print from the browser's top bar, NOT the browser button with the printer icon.
3. Try going through Print Preview and click the Print button.
c) Highlight the text you wish to print.  From the File menu, choose Print (don't use the print button on the browser toolbar). In the browser print box, choose Selection, and click Print.
4. If the frame contains a link to a Word document that is not printing, open the frame in a new window.
   Netscape seems to do this automatically when it opens the Word viewer to access a document link.
   In Explorer, you may have to right click the open document and choose "Open frame in a new window." If that isn't possible, you might have to back up one screen and right click the link to the document and chose "Open in a new window."
5. Internet Explorer and Netscapre both give you the option to "print frames as displayed on the screen" when you choose Print from the File menu.

Light text on a dark background

You will need to change to black text on white background before printing:

1. In Netscape Navigator:
   a) Under the Edit menu, choose “Preferences”
   b) Under Appearance, choose “Colors”
   c) Choose black for text and white for background colors
   d) Check the box beside “Use my chosen colors....”
   e) Click OK to return to reformatted Web page for printing.
2. In Microsoft Internet Explorer:
   a) Under the Tools menu, choose "Internet Options."
   b) Under the General tab, choose "Accessibility."
   c) Under Formatting, check "Ignore colors specified on Web pages."

Marking / Tagging multiple records

1. Once you have marked a record, use the database’s navigation buttons (not the browser’s) to go forward, backward, or perform a new search in that database.
2. Make sure to verify if there is a limit to how many records can be marked at one time, and don’t go over that limit.

Downloading / Saving records

1. Whenever possible, use the save/download/export feature provided by the database (not the browser “Save As”). You may be given choices about what information appears in the records you save (e.g., citation, abstract, full record).
2. If you are not using a database with special download options, you need to save each Web page individually.  Under the browser File menu, choose “Save As”.
3. You should name the file to be saved (without any .xxx extension) and choose the appropriate destination drive (e.g., A:\).  Also, when using the browser "Save As," be sure to change the format of the page to “plain text” (not html) if you want to bring up the text in a word processing program later.
E-mail is also an option for saving records in some databases.

PDF documents

1. Sometimes these types of files overload the printer's memory.
2. To avoid problems printing these files, try dividing the document into print jobs of no more than 5 pages each.

Contact Us