HP today introduced a blog-printing "widget" that adds a "Print Posts" button to your blog pages.
When visitors click this print button, they get an option to pick and choose the blog posts they want to print, and skip those they don't. Only the text and images are included, everything else including advertising, header graphics, sidebars, etc are stripped off.
The blog posts are then saved as a PDF files in A4 or Letter format on the reader's hard-drive. For sites that do not offer RSS feeds, HP will offer a separate Print widget next month (based on Tabblo) that will allow site owners to add print functionality into their existing websites.
The HP Print Widget is currently being tested on popular blogs like Dooce, TechCrunch, BoingBoing and may become widely available sometime next month. [Until then, you can consider making your website printer friendly with simple CSS]
Here's how the Print dialog look like with HP Smart Web Printing - you can tick the arrows next to blogs posts that you would like to save as PDF.
Overall, a very elegant print solution that will also help save trees since your reader are saved from printing non-essential webpage elements.. Expect to see the HP print widget on majority of blogs in the coming weeks. [Thanks Nathan]
Reader Comments
I don't see it on techcrunch or boingboing! Why no HP links in this article for further reading?
Written on 1/6/07 1:32 AM
Paul, this is based on an email exchange with someone from HP.
Here are two additional inputs from him:
1. HP plans to roll-out the HP blog printing plug-ins for other blog products in the SixApart family through the summer and fall. Other leading blogging platforms will be rolled out in the fall timeframe.
2. The service will remain free.
Written on 1/6/07 8:47 AM
Other than Sixapart (BoingBoing) HP is also planing to come up with plug-ins/ widgets for Movable type Blog Publishing platform, but still HP hasn't come up with something that has single CSS print version for single post that HP isn't even testing..
The Print widgets that HP is testing on Techcrunch or so is something that has no. of post to choose from and then print, than why Print Button on bottom of every Post, if all has same i.e. no. of post to choose from.
Written on 22/6/07 8:56 AM