Comments on: Make a Select’s Options Printable

By: DougS

DougS — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:21:43 +0000

this is nice, Chris. I’ve been looking at several sites that use different techniques to actually style the tags. Does anyone have any tips on this topic? It seems to get pretty heavy based on the sites I’ve looked at…..I wanted to use a single image in the background and CSS scroll…no luck yet….

cheers :D

By: Spencer

Spencer — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:02:01 +0000

I would be for the server-side option myself, but the “minified” version is only 55KB (or am I missing something), and if you’re already using jQuery or “just tacking it on,” it’s an easy and elegant solution. And lets face it, JS is part of the web and sacrificing a little print isn’t the worst of your martyrdom/fear.

Using jQuery is not bad habit-forming.

By: Blue

Blue — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:55:26 +0000

I think a Nice addition would be to hide the select menu in the print verison of the stylesheet as well.

By: Chris Coyier

Chris Coyier — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:21:05 +0000

This is a good idea, probably the cleanest way to do it. I think in order to have it come out perfect you’d have to make sure that you set the width of the select to be wide enough that you don’t get any cut-off though (probably 100%).

By: DN

DN — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:06:11 +0000

Why not just use jQuery to set the 'multiple' attribute?

[ select multiple="multiple" ]

( Brackets would be < and > )Automatically revealing all options

By: Bryce

Bryce — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:53:06 +0000

I have to hand it to you, you come up with some very different ways of using JavaScript/jQuery, I don’t think I ever would have thought off doing this.

By: Bob Hay

Bob Hay — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:19:09 +0000

Very nice. I like the jquery solution, especially considering maybe 1% would print it.

By: iFadey

iFadey — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:54:06 +0000

Yes I agree with you. I also do it with PHP :)

By: Justin Ryan

Justin Ryan — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:42:17 +0000

My only gripe with this is that you’re taxing the user’s system (no matter how slightly) EVERY time the page is loaded, regardless of whether or not they will be printing the page (because if they don’t print, the affect of this code is useless.

I wonder what percentage of every web page loaded per given time period is actually printed. My guess would be a minuscule amount.

By: omfg

omfg — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:44:42 +0000

Good idea, but if you wont create div.print-select in non-printable version, you will do some correct:
1)In print version: select{display:none}
2)In script: $(“select:hidden”).each(function(i)…

sorry for my eng (: