Help:Printing

This help page is a how-to guide.

It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

This page in a nutshell: To print a Wikipedia page, select File → Print from your web browser, or click on the browser print icon.

In general, printing a Wikipedia article is as simple as selecting Printable version from the tools menu on the sidebar or at the top-right. Your browser probably has its own print preview feature.

The MediaWiki software that Wikipedia runs on uses Cascading Style Sheets in order to specify the style and layout that is suitable to a printed version of the page. In modern browsers, the print function of the browser should automatically use the rules in the style sheets when you print an article, therefore the print command of your web browser is also useful.

Certain page elements normally do not print; these include self references like section edit links, navigation boxes, message boxes and metadata.^[1]

^ The rationale for not printing navigation boxes is that these items contain wikilinks that are of no use to print readers. (See User talk:Ruud Koot/2010#Do you recall the reason?) There are two problems with this rationale: First, other wikilink content does print, for example See also and succession boxes. Second, navigation boxes do contain useful information regarding the relationship of the article to the subjects of related articles.

[1] The rationale for not printing navigation boxes is that these items contain wikilinks that are of no use to print readers. (See User talk:Ruud Koot/2010#Do you recall the reason?) There are two problems with this rationale: First, other wikilink content does print, for example See also and succession boxes. Second, navigation boxes do contain useful information regarding the relationship of the article to the subjects of related articles.

[1]