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How to allow users to print and download content

 

How to allow users to print and download content

BlissC

7 Nov, 2009 - 04:58 AM
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I've developed an application that users can use to store lists of their favourite books, books they've read, books they'd like to read, etc., and it's all working fine, but it's just suddenly struck me that users may want to print off their list or download their list to use in another format such as a CSV file to import into a spreadsheet.

Obviously users could print the entire web page, but I'd like to give them the ability to just print their list, or to download it as say a CSV file for use in a spreadsheet.

I've seen scripts for converting web pages to PDF, and did consider I could use something like that, but I'm not keen on using PDFs because of the accessibility problems with them.

What would be the easiest way to do this?

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CTphpnwb

RE: How To Allow Users To Print And Download Content

7 Nov, 2009 - 06:28 AM
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QUOTE(BlissC @ 7 Nov, 2009 - 08:58 AM) *

I've seen scripts for converting web pages to PDF, and did consider I could use something like that, but I'm not keen on using PDFs because of the accessibility problems with them.

What accessibility problems?? blink.gif

As far as I know, they can be opened on all operating systems! Heck, Mac and iPhone users don't even need to download Adobe Reader.
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BlissC

RE: How To Allow Users To Print And Download Content

7 Nov, 2009 - 07:43 AM
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QUOTE(CTphpnwb @ 7 Nov, 2009 - 01:28 PM) *

What accessibility problems?? blink.gif

As far as I know, they can be opened on all operating systems! Heck, Mac and iPhone users don't even need to download Adobe Reader.


For disabled users - for users of assistive technologies, e.g. screen-readers etc. which struggle to make sense of PDF documents and read them in a logical way unless they're properly formatted - making a PDF accessible is an art form in itself, and most "convert to PDF" software doesn't produce PDFs in an accessible format. It can be done with semantically correctly formatted Word documents or semantic HTML for example, but it's a PITA to do (the 'best' way to do it's with the proper Adobe software, which has accessibility options built in, but you're talking serious $$$ for that), which is why I tend to avoid using PDFs on websites.

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CTphpnwb

RE: How To Allow Users To Print And Download Content

7 Nov, 2009 - 09:52 AM
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The VoiceOver option in Mac OS X doesn't seem to have any problem with the few pdf files I've tried it on.
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