"Printable" comics

[Se7enLC]

I wanted to print out todays comic and post it on the door of my office. I noticed that the comics don't have any kind of title or anything to reference xkcd, which makes me a little sad for anybody that walks by and reads the comic and wants to know where it came from.

I have a suggestion to add to the website. A link for a "printable" version. It shows the comic image, with mention of xkcd and/or xkcd.com, and possibly even the comic title. (this is instead of printing out the entire webpage, which would look a little silly on the wall)

Thoughts?

[OmenPigeon]

Or you could *gasp* write "from xkcd.com" onto the printout yourself. I know, this is tricky, but I'm here to help, with three easy-to-follow guides.

The 'Handmade with Love' Style:
1: Print the comic
2: Get a pen
2a: This may be in a drawer
3: Write "xkcd.com" somewhere on the printed comic
3a: Don't write over any of the pictures

The 'Look, Ma, I Can Use Paint' Style:
1: Download the comic image
2: Download the site logo
2a: This is the thing in the lop left corner of the forum pages
3: Open the comic in an image editing program
3a: It's the thing in Start > Accessories > Paint
4: Open the logo in the same program
5: Resize the logo, and put it in a corner
6: Print

The 'Hey, Now I'm Actually Useful' Style
1: Learn Python
2: Download the PIL
3: Write a script that can automatically download any (or all) of the comics and then add the logo to a corner of them
4: Post it in the 'Coding' subforum
5: Print one of the comics you've magically created with your newfound haxxor skillz.

Now you can become a productive member of society, along with carpenters and mechanical engineers and those cool bacteria that eat spilled oil.

[Bakemaster]

Omen wins the coveted Bitchy Cup this month, I think.

[Azrael]

Now you can become a productive member of society, along with carpenters and mechanical engineers and those cool bacteria that eat spilled oil.

HOT DAMN! 3 for 3 on that one.

I'm awesome!

[RealGrouchy]

Omen wins the coveted Bitchy Cup this month, I think.

The grouchy mod agrees, and approves of Omen's post.

- RG>

[OmenPigeon]

Aw, shucks. You shouldn'a.

And sorry, se7enLC, if I was mean. Which I guess I was. But c'mon, dude, your problem can be adequately addressed with a sharpie, or even a ballpoint pen. Take some initiative.

[mosc]

I printed this one out as well. My browser puts the URL on the page though so I feel it's properly linked to xkcd

[Se7enLC]

Wow, harsh. OBVIOUSLY I could just write on the comic, or hell, I could just not bother at all (which is what I did) since surely everyone at my office reads xkcd.

I was just posting a suggestion for something that would be ridiculously easy to add to the page and would add a lot of useful function for other people who want to print out a comic and have a nice advertisement for xkcd.

Sure, I could write up a quick snippet of code which downloads the image and throws some words next to it on a static HTML page (why bother editing the image, it's just going to be printed anyway). The truth is, nobody would use it unless it was a "print me" link from the webpage. The code I write will not be all that portable since whatever backend generates the content on xkcd.com is surely different than wgetting an image like I would end up doing.

But actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it might be cool to have it generate PDFs that have multiple comics per page so that you could print out an xkcd coffeetable book.....hmmm

[Hammer]

I was just posting a suggestion for something that would be ridiculously easy to add to the page and would add a lot of useful function for other people who want to print out a comic and have a nice advertisement for xkcd.

On another note, has anyone else noticed the phenomenon whereby anything that some other programmer has to implement is "ridiculously easy"? [/non sequiter]

[Bakemaster]

Your mom would be ridiculously easy. To implement. With... with scripts.

[RealGrouchy]

On another note, has anyone else noticed the phenomenon whereby anything that some other programmer has to implement is "ridiculously easy"? [/non sequiter]

I haven't noticed that, but it would be ridiculously easy to implement a script to find out how popular it is getting.

Your mom would be ridiculously easy. To implement. With... with scripts.

Nice. You really got Hammer there, Bakemaster.

(yes... there were never any intermediate posts there... )

- RG>

[Bakemaster]

These are not the edits you're looking for, eh?

[Se7enLC]

I hate you guys so much.

http://www.mit.edu/~je18337/greasemonkey/xkcdprintable.user.js

(add ?print to the end of a URL to get the printable version. Some problems with larger images, but for the most part they look good.)

[RealGrouchy]

Ah, triumph through adversity.

Good work. You passed the first test.

- RG>

[Belial]

The second test is where RG whips you with lobsters.

[MFHodge]

I hate you guys so much.

http://www.mit.edu/~je18337/greasemonkey/xkcdprintable.user.js

(add ?print to the end of a URL to get the printable version. Some problems with larger images, but for the most part they look good.)

. . . but was it ridiculously easy?

[Bakemaster]

The second test is where RG whips you with lobsters.

And the third test is vice versa.

No one survives the third test.

[RealGrouchy]

Hey, I survive the third test all the time, despite the fact that lobsters are whipping people with me!

- RG>

[AnimanFan]

Along the similar lines, it would be nice if the site has a media=print CSS for the comics. Currently the CSS is set for media=screen, which drops all CSS completely when printing and makes the printout three pages long. With a CSS made for printing, we can save some trees.

I'd do it myself, but I wanted to at least start with the request before I put work into it.

[davean]

Along the similar lines, it would be nice if the site has a media=print CSS for the comics. Currently the CSS is set for media=screen, which drops all CSS completely when printing and makes the printout three pages long. With a CSS made for printing, we can save some trees.

I'd do it myself, but I wanted to at least start with the request before I put work into it.

If you want to submit one, we can work with you to get it included if it is good. I have other things taking precedence ATM though. (and I'm not a web designer).

What I'm saying is, if you make a good one, we can give you feed back, and if it works out, well just add it as an available CSS file.

[AnimanFan]

What I'm saying is, if you make a good one, we can give you feed back, and if it works out, well just add it as an available CSS file.

I figured this would be the case, but I wanted to see if I could pass the buck first.

Busy few days for me, but let's see if I can get this done in a week. Would you mind if I stage a few demo pages on my web server for feedback? When I get something running I'll make a new thread for public reducible.

[davean]

Sure go ahead. Other times of the year I'd handle it, but if you want to see it done quickly ATM, it is in your hands.

[AdamLenda]

I just wanted to ask you to, or offer to do myself, a printable CSS for your comic.

I know I often want to save the art and the image title has to be fished out of the source each time. So I thought it wold be cool to do a printable CSS so that you're fans that want to post your work in the office (like I often do) can just send it off to the printer and get something along the lines of:

<centered Comic title>
<centered comic # / date>
<comic image>
<img tag title as centered script below>
<centered URL>

Little bit of marketing for you, and a convenience for us. Sounds fair right?

--Adam Lenda

[bavardage]

<link rel="stylesheet" media="print" href="stylesheetForPrinty.css" type="text/css" />

The stylesheet along the lines of:
elements, you, do, not, want {
display: none;
}

[tendays]

He was not asking how to make such a style sheet, he was suggesting xkcd.com should have one. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, xkcd doesn't visit the fora that much and will probably not see that suggestion...

EDIT: Making a script to convert a comic page into a printable page should not be too difficult, though, and it doesn't require xkcd's cooperation...

[AdamLenda]

Thanks for pointing that out Tendays.

I was about to write one yesterday when I saw the real programmers comic. It was just going to be a ruby http scraper that would regex the right elements into a striped down html file, and then drop them in a xkcd archives directory. Then it dawned on me that other's having the same problem might not be as html/programming savy and so distributing my little script would be problematic.

Therefore, I thought I might suggest a printable css, and see how many other readers were interested.
Hopefully, we can get enough bumps on this thread to get some attention.

Hell, I'll even write it for him if he'll agree, ahead of time, to use it.

--Adam

[wing]

Davean does the site coding, and because of the way the existing site CSS is structured, it would require extensive changes to what already exists. I know, because when I first read this thread, I dumped a copy of the main page and tried to do a print-mode CSS. Basically, it's tough as hell to get rid of the bottom matter without also deleting critical pieces.

[carr]

May I suggest the greasemonkey script that already exists to create printable copies of the comic?

[AdamLenda]

That'll work. Could you point me in a direction to get that script?

[OmenPigeon]

When in doubt, point yourself towards Google.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=xkcd%20greasemonkey

[bavardage]

I feel rather stupid now. Was thinking you were wanting how to make one.

[dennisw]

Give my Printifier a try.

[RealGrouchy]

Give my Printifier a try.

Simple, elegant, and doesn't require 3rd party software (i.e. greasemonkey).

Kudos.

- RG>

[dennisw]

Give my Printifier a try.

I have added the logo as* suggested in an earlier message above.

* For "in my own way" values of "as".

[phantomOmega]

Dennis, if you were to set up your code to allow the GET requests instead of just POST, it would be trivial to make a Greasemonkey script to automatically make a print link on the XKCD page. It might be possible anyway, but my experience with forms and Greasemonkey is limited.

My minimal testing with Firebug indicates that GET doesn't work... Perhaps I'm just doing something wrong?