Formatting for print and web pages requires different skills. It also doesn\’t necessarily follow that a good designer in one medium will be as adept in the other.

Web Browser Considerations

A major difference between print and web formatting is how both appear to the naked eye. With print, a newspaper, for instance, will look the same to every reader. Web pages can be accessed using different browsers, and, unlike a printed page, the appearance of a web page can vary from browser to browser.

Because of variations in how a web server can display a page, designers have to be conscious of trying to design a page that will look good in various browsers. Designing for print, of course, just requires one fixed design.

Choosing Fonts

Fonts can be a major problem when designing web pages. There are a lot of fonts available that will look good when printed out, but, for web pages, it\’s best to use popular fonts and ones that will display correctly in all browsers. If a nice looking, but obscure font, is used on a web page, then most people viewing that web page will be unable to view that font. The browser will consequently replace that font with another. Traditional fonts on web pages include Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana.

Best Image Formats for Print and the Web

Images on web pages mostly come in two formats, JPEG and GIF. These two formats have remained dominant in the history of the internet, and each format is suitable for different types of images.

JPEG is adaptable for both print and the web, whereas GIF is a format that is more restricted to the internet. GIF files are compatible with all browsers, and it is a format that has the ability to show up to 256 colours. Transparent backgrounds can also be made possible using the GIF format. GIFs are normally used for banners, cartoons, etc.

JPEG is a format that is used for photographs. Millions of colours can be shown in a JPEG, which is why the clarity of the image in both print and on a web page will be good – if the original photograph is sharp. A consideration for a web designer is determining the suitable resolution for an image. If the resolution is too large, then that will slow down the loading time of a web page.

A photograph can be saved as a GIF, and an image with few colours as a JPEG, but the quality of both images may well be adversely affected. A rule to remember is that an image that is printed should appear as a JPEG on a web page.

Obvious Differences

Other differences between web and print are obvious. There\’s no buttons to click on a printed page and no hyperlinks. However, a printed page and web page can still look very similar. This has been successfully achieved by some of the world\’s leading newspapers with online versions that retain their newspaper\’s style in appearance.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, the UK\’s leading specialist in refillable toner cartridges and ink cartridges.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World (http://www.cartridgeworld.co.uk), the UK\’s leading specialist in printer cartridges.

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, the UK\’s leading specialist in refillable toner cartridges and ink cartridges.

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: printer cartridges, ink cartridges, toner cartridges