Going back from preview starts the process again

Thanks for making this a separate thread, that helps keep the two issues organized.

Hmmmm I didn’t realize folks would have that expectation, so thanks for chiming in!

It will take a little bit of wrestling to get it to work the way you expect, but it’s doable.

Mind if I ask why you preferred to click the “View Printable Content” instead of requesting a print preview from your browser? I’ve been considering removing the button to “View Printable Content”… I put it in there because I thought some browsers, like mobile Safari, might need it (otherwise mobile Safari just prints the white page with the buttons).

Thank you.

I didn’t request a print preview from my browser because I didn’t realize it would know to preview the PDF. I thought it would preview the current screen, the white page with the buttons.

Aha thanks for the feedback on your experience, that’s helpful.
Yeah, I use some CSS trickery that tells the browser to show that white page with buttons, but when you go to print or do a print preview, to show the actual compilation of blog posts etc. I can understand how that’s not intuitive at all, and I’ll need to think of a way to make it clear…

Thank you. Please let me know if you need feedback, I’ll be glad to help/

Hi @leac, I’ve been trying to make the user experience more intuitive (especially the fact that my plugin just puts all the content on the same page, it’s the browser that does the actual printing, and can be used to alternatively create a PDF etc).

Would you mind giving me feedback on the proposed changes on this version of the plugin https://github.com/mnelson4/printmyblog/archive/TASK/print-page-string-changes.zip ?

Thank you. This is much more intuitive and nicely placed.

Just one nitpicky thing: I’m not a micro-copy expert, but why does the button say “Print From Browser”? Wouldn’t “Print” be enough? I don’t know how many users care that it’s by the browser, or know if there is any other kind of printing.
But other than that, it seems fine.

Thanks for trying it out. Yeah maybe just “Print” would be sufficient.

The point I’d like folks to understand is that they can use their browser to do other things with the content too. Eg your browser can create a PDF or ePub file from it. I think more people will figure that out when they see the page’s content in the page as normal (rather than hiding it all like before).

I think I’ll probably add some short tutorials on how to make PDFs and ePub files somewhere, and maybe have a link to them from the print page.

Ok I’ve incorporated the changes you tried into version 1.3.0 of the plugin.
So this removes the “View Printable Content” link entirely, and instead always shows a preview of the content. But there will also always be a “Print” button that floats on top of the page, so users won’t miss it.

I’m open to iterating on it further afterwards. But at least this will prevent the problem you had @leac, of (understandably) wanting to preview the content before pressing print by pressing “View Printable Content” and then pressing “back” in your browser which will make you need to then re-generate the print page.

Instead, users will be able to immediately see the content, and it will always be obvious where’s the button to print. Plus, because they can see all the content there, it may help them to realize they can use their browser to do other things with the content. (I think, in the future, I’ll add a link to give more instructions on how to do stuff like create PDFs and ePub files.)

Thanks for the feedback and testing!

I think you’re right that people don’t realize that the browser can create a PDF or ePub file. I think the wording on the button didn’t help in that direction, but that tutorials and links with instructions are a very nice addition.