One of the Internet's greatest advantages is its versatility. Multimedia can be ported to other formats and devices, documents can be faxed, printed or copied to another computer for future use. However, some Web pages have been printer-disabled, making it tough to keep hard copies of the information you've found. Whether you are doing it for legal reasons, convenience or simply to satisfy your own curiosity, you may wish to unlock these protected pages so that you can print them. Web pages are unencrypted when they arrive at your computer -- the trick is restoring them to their original state.
Step 1
Copy the contents of a print-disabled page by pressing the "Ctrl + A" keys together to select all text and other elements on the page. Press "Ctrl + C" to copy the selected content to your clipboard. Open a word processor such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org, create a new document and click anywhere in the blank page. Press "Ctrl + V" to paste the content from your clipboard into the new document. You should now be able to print the document directly from your word processing program.
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Step 2
Press the "Print Screen" key if the Web page that you want to print fits within a single browser window and does not require scrolling. This will capture a screen shot of the browser window and copy the image to your clipboard. Press "Ctrl + V" to paste the screen shot into your word processor or graphic editor of your choice. Print a hard copy of the information directly from your word processor or graphics program.
Step 3
Disable Javascript in your browser. Javascript is a browser-based programming language and is the framework behind most print-disabled Web content. In Internet Explorer, click "Tools," then "Internet Options." Click the tab marked "Security," click "Custom Level," and scroll to the part of the list marked "Scripting." Click "Disable." Then restart your browser. To disable Javascript in Firefox, select "Options" from the "Tools" menu. Click "Content" and uncheck "Enable JavaScript." Try printing the page once Javascript is disabled.
Step 4
Remove the offending Javascript code from the page source. Press "Ctrl + S" to save the HTML document. Open the saved filed in a text editor. Press "Ctrl + F" and type "<script" (without quotes) to search for Javascript code. Delete all code between the opening "<script" tag and the closing "" tag. The page should now print.
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