Bewildering Stories discusses...

Printing Pages

with a contributor

A contributor reports an odd occurrence when printing a story on paper.

I’m bewildered! I printed my story but there’s a blank box to the lower left of the first page. It remains there whether I use Portrait or Landscape. I checked two other stories, and they have the same problem. If contributors copy their stories, they should see it too. Any advice?

Hi, [contributor],

A blank box on the lower left of the first page? But not on any other page?

Just to see what you’re talking about, I tried printing out one sheet of your story as it appears on line in my Net browser, Safari.

The only thing in the lower left is the URL, which is supplied by Safari. In the lower right: "page 1 of 4," which explains why I never print out anything; I consider it a waste of time and paper. But others may have their own purposes and preferences, and I won’t argue.

If I had to print something, for some reason, I find it very hard to imagine why I’d print a browser page. Such pages are screen displays, which are a medium entirely different from print on paper. And web-page printouts will be displayed in the font and size of your browser preferences.

Here’s how I recommend going about it. The process is quick and easy:

Open your story in whatever Net browser you use.
Do "Select All" and then "Copy."
Paste the copy into a word processor file.
Delete the header and footer. Optional, of course, but you’ll save space.
Change the text to the font and size you prefer, then print.

I can’t advise trying to save paper by zooming out in your browser and doing a screen dump. That’s too much work, and you’ll get more satisfactory results from your word processor.

I hope this helps!

Don Webb
Managing Editor
Bewildering Stories