How to edit website pages before printing them

Most website pages include ads, images, videos and quite a bit more that you might not need to include in a printout. So if you’re only really interested in printing some of the text from a page, all the extra page elements can waste lots of ink. Furthermore, as more is printed the additional page elements might also waste extra paper. However, with a few extensions you can remove elements from a page before printing in Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Editing the Page with Print Edit

First, you could remove page elements from the page with the Print Edit extension for Firefox and Google Chrome. This is the Print Edit page on Google Chrome, and Firefox users can add it to their browsers from here. Then open a page to print in your browser, and press the Print Edit button on the toolbar to open the editing options below.

Next, press the Edit button on the toolbar so that you can select things on a page to remove. When you click an element on a page, it will include a red border to highlight its selection as shown below. Click Deselect to undo all the selected page elements.

Now press Delete on the toolbar to erase all the things you selected to remove on the page as shown below. You can always press the Undo button to restore the deleted element. Alternatively, press the Undo All button to restore all the deleted images, text, videos, etc.

You can also add additional text to the page if needed. First, select an element on the page to highlight where to include the text. Then press the Text button to open a text box. Enter some text in that box and press the Apply and OK buttons to add it to the page as shown directly below.

When you’ve finished editing the page, click the Preview option. That opens a print preview of the edited page as below. Then you can select a few extra color and layout print options on the left. Click More settings to expand the options on the left sidebar. Press the Print button to print the page out.

Print or PDF with CleanPrint

Print or PDF with CleanPrint is another extension you can edit pages with before printing them. This is an extension for Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer, which is still included in Windows 10. Open this page to add CleanPrint to one of those browsers. Then you’ll find a Print or PDF with CleanPrint button on the browser’s toolbar.

Open a page to edit with the extension, and click the CleanPrint button on the toolbar. That will then open a preview of the page with images removed as shown below. So the extension automatically removes a lot of page elements.

If there are some images, or other removed elements, you need to include in the printed page, press the Show More button on the left. That will then show you the page with the removed elements. Now you can restore a removed element on the page by clicking it there. Press the Show Less button to return to the original editing window, which will not include the selected restored elements.

You can remove other elements that weren’t automatically erased by moving the x cursor to them. That will highlight a block of text, or other element, as shown directly below. Then you can click to delete an element from the page.

There’s an estimated printed pages figure at the top of the editing window. That shows you how much paper the printout will need. To cut that figure down, press the Decrease font size to use less paper button. That will save you both paper and ink when you print the page.

Less ink is another handy option included in the extension. Press the less ink button to effectively convert the page to black and white. The color images in the pages become black and white to preserve ink.

When you’re done with the editing, you can click the Print Document button to open the browser’s print window. That will show you a preview of the edited page. You can select a few more print options from there.

The Printliminator

You can’t add Print or PDF with CleanPrint or Print Edit to Opera. However, The Printliminator is one print edit extension available for both Opera and Google Chrome. This is the extension’s page on the Opera add-on’s site from which you can add it that browser. When you’ve installed it, you’ll find the Printliminator button on the toolbar as below.

Printliminator might seem a more basic extension compared to some of the other alternatives, but it’s an effective tool for removing page elements with. When you click the extension’s button on the toolbar, you can select page elements such as images, text blocks and videos by moving the cursor over them. Red rectangles highlight the selection as shown in the snapshot below.

Then just click the mouse to remove the selected page element. Alternatively, you can remove all the graphics on the page more quickly by pressing the extension’s toolbar button to open the options shown below. Then press the REMOVE GRAPHICS button to remove all the images from the page.

This extension has some hotkeys for you to press. Click Printliminator’s toolbar button and select View Keyboard Commands to expand a list of keyboard shortcuts as shown below. You can expand and reduce the font sizes with two of the hotkeys listed there. Press Alt and + keys to expand the text, and the Alt and – keys reduce the font sizes after you’ve clicked the extension’s button on the toolbar.

When you’ve edited the page, press the extension’s toolbar button and select SEND TO PRINT to open the print preview and print it. Note that Opera’s default print options include a Background graphics setting you can remove some of the images of the page with before printing. In addition, you can also switch the page to black and white by selecting the Color drop-down menu.

Those are three extensions that you can delete text, images and videos from pages with. As such, you can trim those pages down to size so that they include just the essential content in them. This will save you both ink and paper, and saving paper means you’re also saving trees!