demonhale — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:05:14 +0000

It really does pay to use alternate style-sheets. If you have a content driven site, most of your pages will be printed, especially if you're dealing with education and tutorial sites...

media=screen / print : display vs visibility

webwiz — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 01:42:55 +0000

That's correct. Using visibility: hidden; does not remove the element - it still takes up space, but shows as blank. Use display: none; to remove the element completely.

Cordially, David

Renegade — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:32:22 +0000

Yes, that's exactly it benf. Just use display:none; and it will be taken out. Some people prefer to use visibility:hidden; but I don't think it works quite the same.

benf — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:48:41 +0000

No that sounds intereting. But how can you take out menus and so on.....maybe using display:none?

media attribute in css link

webwiz — Thu, 31 May 2007 17:19:02 +0000

Quote: Do they mean as follows:

screen - literally on the monitor screen.

print - if the page is physically printed out using a printer.

Pretty much that's it. While visitors do like to print out web pages, they are often unaware that they can do things like suppress background images (to save ink, for example). So it is kind to them to give them a separate 'media="print"' style sheet to take out unnecessary images. At the same time, you could take out things like menus that-- to date at least-- you can't click on a paper version. Also, there are problems with printing floats, so you could "unfloat" items for printing, use a different font, change the width, and so on.

You can also use 'media="all"' in your link and wrap the appropriate rules in '@ media' statements within one style sheet. Whatever floats your boat.

Back in the day, web designers used to make two versions (at least) of every page, to include a "printer-friendly" version. Using CSS, you can automatically provide a "printer-friendly" version using these media rules.

I hope I have not confused you too much.

Cordially, David

Megan — Thu, 31 May 2007 16:13:07 +0000

You never know when someone will want to print something! In fact, I have been appalled at how many websites have no print stylesheet at all. I have written about this a few times on my blog.

It is true that few websites *require* printing but I would also say that most websites *will* be printed by users in some way. Make it easy for them by providing a print stylesheet. It's not hard. I plan to write more about this on A Padded Cell (since it's a bit of a pet issue for me).

There are also options to use separate stylesheets for mobile and handheld users - something that is becoming increasingly important. See the rest of the media options here: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#type-media-descriptors (hmmm... projection. That's interesting...)