Printing Windows 7 Help and Support files

Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
files when the print button is pressed?

It appears to my eyes the font used is Times-Roman, and I would like to
change both the font and printing characteristics, such as size and style.

Preferable, being able to do this after clicking the Print button would
be best, regardless of the printer I choose to select from the print
dialogue.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:22:30 -0600, Ken Springer
<> wrote:

> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
> files when the print button is pressed?
>
> It appears to my eyes the font used is Times-Roman, and I would like to
> change both the font and printing characteristics, such as size and style.
>
> Preferable, being able to do this after clicking the Print button would
> be best, regardless of the printer I choose to select from the print
> dialogue.


Copy the text and paste it into your word processor. Change it as
desired and print it from there.

On 6/3/12 12:41 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:22:30 -0600, Ken Springer
> <> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
>> files when the print button is pressed?
>>
>> It appears to my eyes the font used is Times-Roman, and I would like to
>> change both the font and printing characteristics, such as size and style.
>>
>> Preferable, being able to do this after clicking the Print button would
>> be best, regardless of the printer I choose to select from the print
>> dialogue.
>
>
> Copy the text and paste it into your word processor. Change it as
> desired and print it from there.

Hi, Ken,

I'm trying to avoid that, as it's counterproductive to my ultimate goal.
:-)

For as simple a task as this is, you'd think someone would provide
something as simple as a small utility to change the font during
printing, given the fact the help files appear to be HTML when you look
at the source.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:22:30 -0600, Ken Springer wrote:
> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
> files when the print button is pressed?
>

We had this discussion about a month ago; maybe you missed it. If I
recall correctly, no one came up with a way.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

Ken Springer wrote:
> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
> files when the print button is pressed?
>
> It appears to my eyes the font used is Times-Roman, and I would like
> to change both the font and printing characteristics, such as size
> and style.
>
> Preferable, being able to do this after clicking the Print button
> would be best, regardless of the printer I choose to select from the
> print dialogue.

Nothing that easy, but you can right click on a page you want to print
and select "View source." Then save the displayed file as an HTML file.
It will open with whatever the default font for your browser is, or you
can edit the file to specify fonts. Personally, I'd learn to live with
Times New Roman. :-)

--
Crash

Life is short. Eat dessert first.

On 6/3/12 6:11 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
> On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:22:30 -0600, Ken Springer wrote:
>> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
>> files when the print button is pressed?
>>
>
> We had this discussion about a month ago; maybe you missed it. If I
> recall correctly, no one came up with a way.

I asked this question in MS's social answers forum, but I don't remember
seeing anything here.

In the social answers forum, an engineer said it couldn't be done, which
I don't believe. I think it's just something no one, possibly, has ever
considered a user might want to change/modify.

Something, somewhere, controls that printed output when it comes to the
fonts.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

On 6/3/12 7:01 PM, Dave "Crash" Dummy wrote:
> Ken Springer wrote:
>> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
>> files when the print button is pressed?
>>
>> It appears to my eyes the font used is Times-Roman, and I would like
>> to change both the font and printing characteristics, such as size
>> and style.
>>
>> Preferable, being able to do this after clicking the Print button
>> would be best, regardless of the printer I choose to select from the
>> print dialogue.
>
> Nothing that easy, but you can right click on a page you want to print
> and select "View source." Then save the displayed file as an HTML file.
> It will open with whatever the default font for your browser is, or you
> can edit the file to specify fonts. Personally, I'd learn to live with
> Times New Roman. :-)

I'm looking for a simple solution for folks who need the print larger or
a font easier for them to read. I'm anticipating your solution, as well
as Ken Blake's cut and paste solution, will be beyond this group of users.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

Ken Springer wrote:
> On 6/3/12 6:11 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
>> On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:22:30 -0600, Ken Springer wrote:
>>> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
>>> files when the print button is pressed?
>>>
>>
>> We had this discussion about a month ago; maybe you missed it. If I
>> recall correctly, no one came up with a way.
>
> I asked this question in MS's social answers forum, but I don't remember
> seeing anything here.
>
> In the social answers forum, an engineer said it couldn't be done, which
> I don't believe. I think it's just something no one, possibly, has ever
> considered a user might want to change/modify.
>
> Something, somewhere, controls that printed output when it comes to the
> fonts.
>
>

If the rendering of Windows Help And Support is web browser engine based,
then it's possible there is font control. A web page encoded with no
font information, might accept the web browser "default" font choice.
Then, you'd have an opportunity to change it.

If, on the other hand, all the "web-ish" content used to create the
help pages, includes complicated schemes for controlling fonts, then
you might have no choice in the matter. I'm not an expert on coding
web pages, so I don't know if a "style sheet" can override user
choices or not.

Your starting point, would be discovering where all of that content
is stored, and examining it. It is unlikely that the web pages
are prepared in a "naive" style, such that the font controls
in the browser configuration would allow it to be changed.
They wouldn't want the "spacing" to be affected, such that
their hard work is "ugly".

Paul

On 6/3/12 7:49 PM, Paul wrote:
> Ken Springer wrote:
>> On 6/3/12 6:11 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
>>> On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:22:30 -0600, Ken Springer wrote:
>>>> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
>>>> files when the print button is pressed?
>>>>
>>>
>>> We had this discussion about a month ago; maybe you missed it. If I
>>> recall correctly, no one came up with a way.
>>
>> I asked this question in MS's social answers forum, but I don't remember
>> seeing anything here.
>>
>> In the social answers forum, an engineer said it couldn't be done, which
>> I don't believe. I think it's just something no one, possibly, has ever
>> considered a user might want to change/modify.
>>
>> Something, somewhere, controls that printed output when it comes to the
>> fonts.
>>
>>


Rather than do the smart thing and go to bed......... (LOL)

> If the rendering of Windows Help And Support is web browser engine based,
> then it's possible there is font control. A web page encoded with no
> font information, might accept the web browser "default" font choice.
> Then, you'd have an opportunity to change it.

I had read similar on a web site, but hadn't tested that theory. But on
initial experimentation, it does seem the default serif font selected in
IE9 on my Win7 'puter is what is used for printing. But, unlike Firefox
and probably others, there is no option for the font size. I'd like to
be able to control bolding also, but no more experimenting tonight!

> If, on the other hand, all the "web-ish" content used to create the
> help pages, includes complicated schemes for controlling fonts, then
> you might have no choice in the matter. I'm not an expert on coding
> web pages, so I don't know if a "style sheet" can override user
> choices or not.

I think whether or not a style sheet can be overridden is based on the
browser. In Firefox 12.0 there is a setting to allow the pages to
choose their own fonts, or use the fonts chosen by the user. I'm not
sure of other browsers.

> Your starting point, would be discovering where all of that content
> is stored, and examining it. It is unlikely that the web pages
> are prepared in a "naive" style, such that the font controls
> in the browser configuration would allow it to be changed.

"Naive"???? Or "native". <grin>

In HTML, there are controls for font sizing, line spacing, etc. I just
have to dig out my books on HTML basics, and then hopefully find the
settings/files on the hard drive. But first, I'll print some pages with
different fonts I'm considering, and see what happens. That might give
me an idea of what MS is doing in the background. Once I've figured
that out, then all I have to do is record what I did to get the "look" I
want, and all Help and Support pages will print with this look, or
should. Even if I use a PDF printer driver.

This should be a lot quicker than Ken Blake's cut, paste, and format
solution.

> They wouldn't want the "spacing" to be affected, such that
> their hard work is "ugly".

If MS cared about "ugly", they would not have chosen Times-New Roman as
the default font in IE. I suspect that choice goes all the way back to
whatever version of IE is installed with Windows for Workgroups.
Times-Roman has always been around. I've yet to see any computer from
any maker, or OS, that doesn't have Times-New Roman installed. Or,
installed using a different name such as Dutch.

Using fonts in typography on a computer is far, far more complicated
than most users know or care about, until the result they get isn't what
they wanted or expected.

If you subscribe to the conventional wisdom of typography, Times-New
Roman is just about the worst font to choose from if you are wanting to
use a serif font.

For fun, I viewed the source of one help file, then saved it out of
Notepad as a .txt file. Then changed the extension to .htm and ran it
through W3C's validator. 1 warning and 5 errors. <grin> I didn't
delve into the results at all, but I'd suspect that MS has used some IE
specific browser commands, which should fail a validation test.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

On 04/06/2012 05:40, Ken Springer wrote:
>>> On 6/3/12 6:11 PM, Stan Brown wrote:
>>>> On Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:22:30 -0600, Ken Springer wrote:
>>>>> Does anyone know of a way to select the font used for printing these
>>>>> files when the print button is pressed?
>>>>>
> If you subscribe to the conventional wisdom of typography, Times-New
> Roman is just about the worst font to choose from if you are wanting to
> use a serif font.
>
> For fun, I viewed the source of one help file, then saved it out of
> Notepad as a .txt file. Then changed the extension to .htm and ran it
> through W3C's validator. 1 warning and 5 errors. <grin> I didn't delve
> into the results at all, but I'd suspect that MS has used some IE
> specific browser commands, which should fail a validation test.
>
>
From another thread in here, the font used by Windows 7 help is called
"Segoi UI". Suggestions of how to change it in that thread included
renaming another font, which, as it's a protected system file, isn't a
trivial matter, and may well not survive past the first running of the
system file checker.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.