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One of the biggest ongoing nuisances about using information from the Internet involves web pages that are not formatted to print properly.

Everyone has seen the consequences. You print the content, collate the pages, and discover that words have been cut off from the right-hand margins. If it is a long document and an ink-jet printer — with each drop of ink worth its weight in gold —you can easily waste several dollars on one unusable printout.

It can get worse, too.

I’ve heard stories about business people who have printed web content as handouts for important meetings with clients and bosses – without checking to make sure that everything did print.

Sure enough, the right-hand margins were cut off, leaving everyone at the meeting wondering whether this person is always so careless and inattentive.

More and more organizations and companies are including a “printer friendly” link on web pages so that the text prints properly. Others are making pages printer friendly in the first place.

Check on the formatting before you print web content.

Use the “print preview” in your word processing software. In MS Word, the most popular, access it by clicking on File in the Toolbar and selecting Print Preview in the drop down menu. The preview shows exactly how a document will appear on paper.

What if the right-hand margins are cut off?

The most reliable solution involves copying the content into another Word file, and printing that file. Click on Edit in the Toolbar, and Select All. Right click in the highlighted area and select Copy. Minimize the web page and open a new empty Word Document.

Click on Edit. If you want just text, select Paste Special and Unformatted Text. If you want the whole page, select Paste. Go through the Print Preview routine one more time before printing the document.

If you do start printing a long document, and note that the margins are cut off, try stopping the printer. When printing starts, a little printer icon appears opposite the Windows Start Button, near the system clock.

Click on that icon and select cancel or stop printing. You’ve got to work very fast before the printer commits to all the pages.

If try to stop by turning the printer off, you’re almost certain to cause a paper jam that can be difficult to clear.

Here’s a tip for improving the way text appears on your monitor, especially those liquid crystal displays (LCDs) that are standard on laptop computers and flat-panel displays that are more and more popular for desktop computers.

The edges of text characters blur a little on any monitor and more so on LCDs. Most computers have a feature, ClearType technology, that smoothes the edges.

To turn ClearType on, right click in an empty spot on your desktop and choose Properties, Appearance, and Effects. Check the box for smoothing edges of screen fonts, select ClearType, click OK, and Apply.

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