Print Button Overview
What Your Readers See
They get the article on its own: the headline, the text and the images, without your navigation, sidebars or ads. From there they can delete any paragraph or picture they do not want, resize the text and images, and then print it, save it as a PDF, or email it to someone.
Where that happens depends on your plan. On the free button your reader is taken to printfriendly.com, sees an ad beside the article, and comes back to your site afterwards. On Pro the same view opens directly over your own page and they never leave.
Either way they are never asked to create an account or pay for anything.
Free and Pro
The button is free with no limit on how many people use it. Pro is a per-domain subscription, and it changes more than the ads.
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the preview opens | On printfriendly.com. Your reader leaves your site and comes back afterwards. | Over your own page. Your reader never leaves your site. |
| Ads | An ad is shown alongside the preview. | No ads at all. |
| Pages behind a login or paywall | Will not work. We fetch the page ourselves, and we cannot sign in as your reader. | Works. The article is read in your reader's browser, which is already signed in. |
| PrintFriendly credit on the printout | A small PrintFriendly credit appears. | No credit. |
| Subdomains | No license needed at all, so there is no domain or subdomain limit. | Covers three subdomains. |
| Staging site | Not included. | One development domain, free. |
Pro also unlocks Encode images and Show hidden content, both covered on Actions and Pro Features. Current prices are on the Print Button page.
The row that catches people out
Getting One
The builder walks through picking a button, choosing what your readers can do with it, and generating the code to paste. It takes a couple of minutes and you do not need an account to get as far as the code.
On WordPress, use the plugin instead
Common Questions
What kind of sites is this for?#
Anywhere a reader might want a clean copy of a page: recipes, knitting and sewing patterns, news and long articles, documentation, course material, legal and government notices, church bulletins. Anything people print, keep, or forward.
Do my readers need a PrintFriendly account?#
No. They click the button and get their page. Accounts only matter on your side, and only if you buy Pro.
Will it work on an internal site, or on localhost?#
On Pro, mostly yes. The article is read in your reader's browser, so a page only they can reach still prints and still makes a PDF. Images are the exception unless you turn on Encode images, because we fetch those from your server.
On the free button, no. Your reader is sent to printfriendly.com and we fetch the page from there, which we cannot do for a site behind a firewall or on localhost.
Will it work on pages behind a login or a paywall?#
On Pro, yes. Your reader's browser is already signed in, and it is the browser that reads the article and sends it to us. We never ask your server for the page.
On the free button, no. The preview is built on printfriendly.com from a copy our servers fetch, and they cannot sign in as your reader. This is the main reason members-only sites buy Pro.
On Pro, if images are missing from the result, turn on Encode images, which sends those from the reader's browser too. It is on Actions and Pro Features.
Will it slow my pages down?#
The script loads in the background and does nothing until someone clicks, so it never slows your page down. The button itself is a few elements of markup with no images to fetch.