The first thing to do is make sure that your printer drivers (the instructions that control your printer) are installed and working correctly. The easiest way to determine this is to get into your word processor and print something. Chances are that if you can print from your word processor, you will have no problem printing a web page. If you cannot print from your word processor, you need to do a little trouble shooting to set things right.

Have you heard the term WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzy-wig) before? It stands for What You See Is What You Get. In this case, what it means is that what you see on the screen is what you are going to get on paper--with a few minor exceptions that I'm about to explain.

Most of the time when you print a web page, you get exactly what was on the screen on paper. Of course if you don't have a color printer, everything will be in shades of gray. Once in a while when you try to print a web page, you will get a blank piece of paper. This usually happens when the web page contains white text (or some other very light colored text) on a dark background. The printer will not print the background and so you have white text on white paper! It's kind of like the picture in a museum that is just a white canvas, but it is labeled "White Cow in the Snow" or something silly like that! You will learn how to solve this problem in this lesson.

Another situation that is sometimes confusing involves web pages that use frames. Framed web pages usually have two or more distinct regions on the screen that act as if they are seperate pages. If a web page contains frames, you can't print the whole document. Maybe future versions of web browsers will solve this problem, but for now you can only print the individual frames. The only thing you have to do is to make sure that the cursor is inside the frame you want to print before you select the Print button.

A final consideration is animated (moving) graphics. Graphic images which contain motion obviously cannot be printed on a sheet of paper. You will probably get some part of the graphic, but not the whole thing.

Also, from now on, instead of writing out a list of instructions in sentence form, I will use the standard form that you see in many instruction manuals. This involves seperating the list of instructions by a vertical bar as in the following example.

Do this first | do this next | then do this | and do this last

For example, I could write the following instructions in several sentences.

Select File from the menu bar. Then select Page Setup. Next select Black Text. Last, but not least, select OK.

Instead of writing these chopy little sentences, I could give you the same set of instructions as follows.

File | Page Setup | Black Text | OK

OK? Much simpler, right? Now you want have so much to read.

Follow the instructions listed below to learn more about printing web pages.

1.	Although they are called web pages, a web document rarely fits on one printed page. Since it is usually helpful to know how a web page is going to be reproduced on paper, Netscape lets you preview the hard copy so you know what to expect. To see the preview, perform the following steps. File | Print Preview When you open the File menu on the Netscape Tool Bar, Print Preview will be the third option from the bottom as illustrated in this example.
2.	When you select Print Preview, the preview screen opens showing the current web page. At the top of the Preview screen, the following buttons are displayed. If the button is dimmed out, that particular option is not available at the time. There is nothing mysterious about the purpose of each button.   The Print button will start the printing process. The Next Page button will let preview the next page in the document. The Prev Page button will let you preview the previous page in the document. The One Page button will let you preview one page at a time. This button toggles back and forth between a one page and a two page preview screen. The Zoom In button lets you get a closer look at features of the page. The Zoom Out button reverses the zoom in process. The Close button shuts down the preview screen and returns you to the web page displayed in the normal Netscape browser screen. When you are through previewing the page, select the Close button.
3.	. After Previewing the web page, it is time check the Page Setup by performing the following steps. File | Page Setup Page Setup is the fifth option from the bottom of the File pull down menu located on Netscape's Tool Bar. My recommendation is that you set the options the way I have them here for the time being. Later as you gain more experience, you can make adjustments in the Page Setup to suit your needs. To make changes, you place your cursor in the box and click once. A check mark means the option has been selected. A blank box indicates that the option is not active. If you make changes, you have to click on OK. If you don't make any changes, you just click on Cancel. Remember, I mentioned the "White Cows in the Snow" effect? You solve that problem right here in the Page Setup window by selecting black text. That causes all text on the screen, regardless of its color, to be printed in black. Imagine if paintings in a museum came with such a feature--Click here to see what the artist was really trying to get across. Maybe then I would have a greater appreciation for modern art!
4.	Now you are finally ready to print by following these steps. You have two choices. You can click the Print button on the Menu Bar. Or you can select File | Print from the Menu Bar. (Print is the fourth option from the bottom of the pull down menu that appears when you select File from the Netscape Menu Bar.) The print dialog box shows you the final set of options you can choose before starting the printing process. Keep in mind that you probably have a different printer, so the settings in your print dialog box may look a little different than this example. If you use a word processor, these options will look familiar. There are only three choices you need to make. Print range: If you recall the number of printed pages when you previewed the document, you need to decide if you want to print all of the pages, a certain range of pages, or only a specific selection within the document. Copies: Choose the number of copies you want. Collate: If you want each set of copies printed in order, check the Collate box. Once you have made these choices, click on OK and your document will begin printing.
5.	Your assignment for this lesson is to go to any two web sites of your choice and print them. Go through the steps listed for each page so that you are comfortable with the process. Print Preview Print Setup Print

I would like you to give me a set of instructions for doing something. Pick something unrelated to computers like starting a car, brushing your teeth, driving to your house, etc.and give me a short list of instructions for that activity. For example, if I wanted to boil water, this would be my list of instructions.

Get a pan | Put water in it | Place pan on stove | Turn stove on high |
Turn stove off when water boils.

Your instructions can be just that simple.