How to Add a Printer Friendly Option to Your WordPress Posts

Have you ever tried printing a WordPress blog post only to end up with a messy page full of sidebars, ads, and navigation menus? Your visitors might run into the same problem on your site.

It’s a common issue, and many site owners don’t realize their content isn’t easy to print.

When someone chooses to print your post, it usually means they find it valuable. They might want to share it with colleagues, save it as a PDF, or use it as an offline reference.

The good news is there’s a simple fix. In our testing, we found a free plugin called PrintFriendly that adds a printer-friendly option to your WordPress posts, so they always look clean and professional when printed.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to add a printer-friendly option to your posts, so your visitors can get a clean, professional copy every time. 🖨️

Why Add a Printer-Friendly Option to Your WordPress Posts?

Printing directly from a WordPress blog doesn’t always go as planned. Instead of just the content, your visitors often end up with the full layout – images, sidebars, headers, and menus.

This makes the printed page cluttered and hard to read. It can also waste a lot of paper and ink, which is a big deal when you consider that the average office worker prints thousands of pages every year.

Some WordPress themes include special design rules (known as print media queries) inside their CSS stylesheets. These rules automatically format your content for printing by telling the printer to ignore elements like sidebars and menus.

You can view the print preview by pressing CTRL+P on Windows or Command+P on Mac to check how your WordPress site looks when printed.

If the print preview shows your website’s header, footer, and sidebar, then you can add a printer-friendly option to your WordPress site.

Doing this will add an on-screen print icon that lets users know they can have an attractive, readable printout of your content.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to add a printer-friendly option to your WordPress posts. Here is a quick overview of what we will cover in this guide:

Let’s get started.

How to Add a Printer-Friendly Option to Your WordPress Posts

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Print, PDF, Email by PrintFriendly plugin.

We recommend this plugin because it’s an easy way to add print, PDF, and email options to your site. Plus, visitors can print, download a PDF, or email your posts in just a click.

For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once activated, the plugin automatically adds ‘Print’ and ‘PDF’ icons to your posts and pages, which lets visitors create a clean, distraction-free printout or PDF.

You can customize the plugin by navigating to Settings » Print Friendly & PDF from your WordPress dashboard.

At the top of the page, users who are paying for Pro features can activate their accounts. To use the free version, just scroll past this section.

In the ‘Select content using’ section, you should leave the default ‘WP Template’ option selected.

Sometimes, complex page builder plugins prevent the ‘Print’ and ‘PDF’ icons from displaying on your WordPress site.

If the default setting doesn’t catch your content, simply come back here and try selecting a different option, like using a custom CSS class or targeting specific HTML elements.

Next, you can customize the button’s style and where it appears on the page.

The plugin offers different labels, colors, and designs to choose from. Some styles show extra icons like PDF or email, but don’t worry, those options will still be available in the preview window, no matter which style you pick.

It’s a good idea to test a few styles until you find one that fits best with your site’s design.

The same applies to where you put the button. You can place the button above or below your content and align it to the left, right, or center, or have no alignment.

Here, feel free to try a few alignment options to find one that looks best.

Next, you can choose where the print button appears on your site.

By default, the print button will appear on all posts and pages. But you can choose to show it on specific pages, like your homepage, category pages, or archive pages.

For example, you might want to enable it on category pages if you have resource lists that visitors would find useful to print.

You could show the print button only for specific categories by entering them in the box labeled ‘Specific categories to show on.’ Simply click that box, and then you can select the categories you want from a dropdown menu.

What if you want to manually place the button exactly where you want it?

Advanced users can also add the button using code. We recommend using a code snippets plugin like WPCode. It is the safest way to add a custom code snippet without editing your theme files directly.

Some of our partner brands use WPCode to add and manage their custom code snippets. It’s been working wonderfully well, and you can see our complete WPCode review for details.

To do this, you’ll need to install and activate the WPCode plugin in your WordPress site. For step-by-step instructions, you can follow our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

You can then add a new snippet in WPCode, select ‘PHP Snippet’ as the Code Type, and paste in this code: <?php if(function_exists("pf_show_link")){echo pf_show_link();} ?>.

Next, you can use WPCode’s ‘Auto-Insert’ settings to choose exactly where the button should appear, such as before or after your post content.

You can also add the plugin’s shortcode, [printfriendly], anywhere within a post, page, or sidebar widget. Simply add a Shortcode block to your content and paste the shortcode inside it.

Don’t forget to click ‘Save Options’ at the bottom to save your changes.

You can now visit your website to see your print icon in action.

Here’s how it looks on our demo website:

When you click the ‘Print’ button, a preview page will appear that shows you exactly how the page will look when it is printed.

What’s really cool is that you can tidy up the page before you print.

Simply hover over any part you don’t want, like the author’s name or an image, and click the trash can icon to remove it from the printed document, without deleting anything from your live website. This ensures you only print exactly what you need.

When you’re ready, simply click the ‘Print’ icon to print the page.

Alternatively, you can click the ‘PDF’ button to download a PDF version of the page or the ‘Email’ button to email the PDF.

Bonus Blogging Hacks

Adding a print icon to your blog posts is just one way to make things easier for your readers. There are some other cool tricks you can try, too.

For instance, you could add a ‘Load More Posts’ button. This lets visitors keep scrolling through your content without leaving the page, which helps keep them engaged.

You can also show your upcoming scheduled posts. Letting readers know what’s coming next can build excitement for your future content.

Lastly, you can add tooltips to your posts and pages. These give extra details when someone hovers over a word or phrase, keeping things clear without cluttering the page.

For more tutorials, you can check out our ultimate guide on how to start a blog.

FAQs About Adding a Printer-Friendly Option to Your Posts

Still have questions? Here are some quick answers to help you get started.

Do I really need a printer-friendly version of my content?

If your posts include tutorials, guides, or long-form content, then yes. A printer-friendly version removes distractions like menus and sidebars, making it easier for readers to print, save, or share your content.

Can I control what gets included in the printed version?

Yes. As the website owner, you can use the plugin settings to exclude elements like images or links by default. Additionally, your visitors can customize their own printouts by clicking the trash can icon in the preview window to remove anything they don’t want to print.

Can I customize the look of the print button?

Yes. In the plugin settings, you can choose different button styles, colors, and labels. You can also decide where it shows up, like above or below your content, so it fits nicely with your WordPress theme.

Can visitors save the page as a PDF?

Yes, they can. When someone clicks the button, they’ll see a preview window with options to print, save as a PDF, or even email the page.

Is the Print Friendly & PDF plugin free?

Yes. The core plugin is completely free to use. There’s also a Pro version with extra features, but the free version already gives you everything you need to add a solid print option to your WordPress site.

Will this plugin slow down my website?

In our performance testing, we have found that the Print Friendly & PDF plugin is lightweight and designed for performance. It shouldn’t have any noticeable effect on your site’s speed.

Further Reading About Post and Page Management in WordPress

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add a printer-friendly option to your WordPress posts.

You may also want to check out these guides for more ways to manage your posts and pages:

• How to Display Related Posts in WordPress
• How to Add Custom Post Status for Blog Posts in WordPress
• How to Add Multiple Post Thumbnails/Featured Images in WordPress
• How to Add Tabbed Content in WordPress Posts and Pages
• WordPress Post Analytics – See Your Blog Stats

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