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When I go caching, I prefer a printed out hardcopy (yeah, yeah, I know. I have a Smartphone with current PQ's, but I still find this more efficient). The more caches per sheet, the happier I am. With the past version of cache pages it was tough to cut-n-past (in order to reduce the output), but the current version, with all the tables is a nightmare to reduce down to the basic information.

 

Choosing the "Make this page print-friendly" was designed by someone who obviously never prints their cache pages (probably not even a cacher). With no editing (and no logs) it spits out a minimum of two pages!

 

My suggestion is to make the "print-friendly" page, print-friendly. Consolidate what is needed and delete items and formats not needed, as suggested below.

 

- Get rid of all "TABLES"

- No maps

- No graphics (i.e. cache container icons, Difficulty/Terrain stars, etc.) - use text or nothing at all.

- Remove all items that can be "Selected Options" from the original cache page (the user already chose print-friendly), such as "Send to Phone", or "Print PDF".

-The above includes all hyperlinks (this is for PRINTING)

 

I suggest the format below (the less lines used the better):

 

Cache Name and GCxxxx

Cache TYPE and SIZE Difficulty: 2Star Terrain: 1Star

Hidden by on date

Coordinates

Your disclaimer (which I really don't want but I guess you need)

Inventory: travelbugs/Geocoins

 

Text description

 

Additional Hints: and Decryption Key

 

Additional Waypoints

 

x number of logs entries (if any, as selected on the original cache page)

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I wholeheartedly agree with the OP!!!! The only thing I'd add to the list of things that ought to be on the printer friendly version is a text version of the attribute icons, as well as the distance from your home coordinates (helps those of us who use paper to better organize a route).

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Intersting.. just saw this thread today.

 

I just pushed out some new updates. One of them is a new Print Friendly Page.

 

You can reorder sections and show/hide them before you print. There is also an option to set the zoom level of the map.

 

Take a look: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...2a-39a7108c0102

 

-Raine

 

Now that's service! B) You even included the text version of the attributes as suggested by Whistler. Is it still possible to get a printer-friendly version with logs... either as an expandable triangle that is collapsed by default or as a link on the cache page the same way that PDfs are?

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Intersting.. just saw this thread today.

 

I just pushed out some new updates. One of them is a new Print Friendly Page.

 

You can reorder sections and show/hide them before you print. There is also an option to set the zoom level of the map.

 

Take a look: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...2a-39a7108c0102

 

-Raine

Hiding the sections is neat!

 

Showing them again causes my MSIE to crash and close. I've tried it on multiple cache pages and it did it every time.

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It's a nice layout, but without logs, it's not something I could use. And since it re-flows the entire "long description" into a single paragraph, it's tough for multis such as The Day of the Dead.

 

I can still get last week's print-friendly page with decrypted hints and logs by appending &pf=y&decrypt=y&log=y to the standard page. Please don't take this away. Without it, I can't go caching.

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I just pushed out some new updates. One of them is a new Print Friendly Page.
VERY Nice! The zoom feature is especially nice. I just noticed it is on the main cache page too! B)

 

Is there a thread that details the other updates? I like trying new things.

 

It's rare to see developers active in forums. Thanks for participating Raine!

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Intersting.. just saw this thread today.

 

I just pushed out some new updates. One of them is a new Print Friendly Page.

 

You can reorder sections and show/hide them before you print. There is also an option to set the zoom level of the map.

 

Take a look: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...2a-39a7108c0102

 

-Raine

Hiding the sections is neat!

 

Showing them again causes my MSIE to crash and close. I've tried it on multiple cache pages and it did it every time.

I will second that bug, it crashed on me as well after trying to reopen the closed section

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Intersting.. just saw this thread today.

 

I just pushed out some new updates. One of them is a new Print Friendly Page.

 

You can reorder sections and show/hide them before you print. There is also an option to set the zoom level of the map.

 

Take a look: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...2a-39a7108c0102

 

-Raine

Hiding the sections is neat!

 

Showing them again causes my MSIE to crash and close. I've tried it on multiple cache pages and it did it every time.

 

What version of IE?

 

It works fine in Opera 9, IE 7, Safari XP and FireFox 2 and 3.0 beta

 

-Raine

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Showing them again causes my MSIE to crash and close. I've tried it on multiple cache pages and it did it every time.

 

What version of IE?

 

It works fine in Opera 9, IE 7, Safari XP and FireFox 2 and 3.0 beta

 

-Raine

This is IE 6.

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Is anybody else having trouble with the printer friendly page?

I can not get this option to print the location or the inventory any more.

the hide image line will not change get a window that says java void.

I have tried clicking on it no change,tried right click and left click still nothing

get the same message. The printer friendly page used to work for me.

I like to print every thing but the logs.But I do need the location.

up date,, it works ok on other zip codes but not on mine 97132

Edited by pokerace
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Thanks so much Raine! The new pages are fabulous! I particularly like the ability to get rid of the picture in the cache description. I like to see them, I just don't need to print them and carry them with me. All the features seem to be working just fine for me (using Vista and IE 7). The new printer-friendly pages have made my day!

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I too am a paper printer, and I noticed that the new format does not print out the COORDINATES! What's up with that? This is after I've logged in, etc., and I am a premium member. They appear on my screen, but not in print. So I now have to copy them down on the paper. I use IE 7.

 

I keep my GPS in the car, so I rarely download waypoints directly. Plus, a GCXXX means nothing to me - I like nicknames.

 

Thanks.

Edited by BiPR
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THANK YOU!!!!! To whomever updates the print friendly pages! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THEM! Especially the hide/show image buttons. :unsure: I have hidden a few caches and have purposely kept my descriptions brief for 1 page print outs, but now could write more if I want to! :rolleyes: The zoom option on the maps is also fantastic! THANK YOU!!!!

Edited by Libblet22
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When printer friendly changed a few weeks ago, I started using the "2 pages per sheet" printer option and could get at least a few logs on. I always specify print one page only. I did need my bifocals to read it tho. I also print in black and white and use the back side of scrap paper with local caches. When I'm away I double side print caches. Now with more new changes, I can't figure out how to use print friendly AND get last five logs. What am I missing?

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I see that the "print friendly" page has changed since my original comments a few days ago.

Since this new version still has a bunch of "material" I don't want on a printed page, I was trying to grab some text in segments (too many tables for a clean cut-n-paste), and it crashed my browser (MS IE V6) (error: The instruction at "0x7dd5074b" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read".

 

The new "Short Description / Long Description" scripts seems to be causing the problem(s). Simply clicking on Long Description arrow a couple of times in a row caused it to crash again (and again). crashed it about 5-6 times before getting bored with it and moving on.

 

Again, there is way too much "extra stuff", I don't want on a printed page and the problem is compounded by having what I do want, spread across the entire page in numerous tables, taking up all the real estate.

 

Give me a compact/condensed breakdown of ONLY the items I need to find the cache.

 

Put the slick stuff on the original page and make the print friendly page PRINT FRIENDLY.

Edited by Backup
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I just printed the printer friendly version of a new local cache, and here's what I have on the page (starting at the top):

 

-gc#

-cache type icon and name

-name of cache owner, date placed

-coordinates

-size, difficulty, terrain

-log counts

-disclaimer

-short description

-long description

-attributes

-trackables

-map

 

I'm not sure what Backup means by "tables". I think all the info included is good too have, even if not strictly "necessary" in all cases. The thing that I need least often, the map, is at the bottom where I can easily avoid having it print out simply by highlighting and printing the "selection" rather than "all." I don't really need the geocaching logo or little picture of Signal either, but I don't begrudge Groundspeak a little advertising.

 

The only thing I miss (but which I can live without if I must) is the distance from my home coordinates. That was just an organizational feature anyway, and I do my organizing beforehand at home.

 

Edited to add: I think I found the "tables"...they're on the PDF version. I never used that before, or even looked at it. I always just use the regular "make this page printer-friendly." I don't generally print out any logs. Usually I read the last few to see if there might be a potential problem, and then just jot down anything that seems important.

Edited by whistler & co.
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The thing that I need least often, the map, is at the bottom where I can easily avoid having it print out simply by highlighting and printing the "selection" rather than "all."
Click the down-arrow to the left of the word "Map". Notice how it changes to a right-arrow and the map disappears. Very cool. Now if only there were an arrow next to "Logs" that I could click to make them appear.
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I too am a paper printer, and I noticed that the new format does not print out the COORDINATES! What's up with that? This is after I've logged in, etc., and I am a premium member. They appear on my screen, but not in print. So I now have to copy them down on the paper. I use IE 7.

 

I keep my GPS in the car, so I rarely download waypoints directly. Plus, a GCXXX means nothing to me - I like nicknames.

 

Thanks.

 

Obviously something is not working correctly on your browser. Have you tried this in anything other then the IE 7 you're running?

 

-Raine

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I see that the "print friendly" page has changed since my original comments a few days ago.

Since this new version still has a bunch of "material" I don't want on a printed page, I was trying to grab some text in segments (too many tables for a clean cut-n-paste), and it crashed my browser (MS IE V6) (error: The instruction at "0x7dd5074b" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read".

 

The new "Short Description / Long Description" scripts seems to be causing the problem(s). Simply clicking on Long Description arrow a couple of times in a row caused it to crash again (and again). crashed it about 5-6 times before getting bored with it and moving on.

 

Again, there is way too much "extra stuff", I don't want on a printed page and the problem is compounded by having what I do want, spread across the entire page in numerous tables, taking up all the real estate.

 

Give me a compact/condensed breakdown of ONLY the items I need to find the cache.

 

Put the slick stuff on the original page and make the print friendly page PRINT FRIENDLY.

 

Backup,

 

While I'm sure you cache with just the bare minimum, that doesn't mean other people do. The way its setup now lets you hide/show specifically what the person print the page out wants to see.

 

So.. I did give you a compact/condensed breakdown of the times, but who's to say what you need to find the cache. Only you can. So, close a few sections, print the page.. and go have fun caching!

 

-Raine

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I just printed out a cache page that, besides standard items, had one paragraph of text (4 sentences). It printed as two full sheets.

 

To clarify a bit, I want to be able to print multiple caches, perhaps 4-5 on one sheet.

 

The example whistler & co. uses would be perfect IF IT USED UP THE SAME AMOUNT OF PAPER REAL ESTATE. But it does not. It takes a minimum of one entire sheet for a few lines of text.

 

Once I've decided to print a page that means I already examined the initial/original cache page and decided I'm going after the cache. I already looked at the map (zooming in and out), I've enjoyed the spiffy frog graphics and icons and such and once printed any URL links will not be usable. At this point I just want the basics.

 

I'm not sure what Backup means by "tables".

 

"Tables" are text or graphic boxes used to format a page. The same "tables" are used in MS Word, and just like MS Word the table borders and lines can displayed or hidden. I've never looked at the PDF version (not to mention that PDF is specifically designed to display text in a non-changeable format).

 

Someone who simply prints the page "as is" would not notice the tables. But because there is so much extra on the "print friendly" page (which is what started me on this topic - golly, gone full circle already), I use cut-n-past into a MS Word doc and the tables just make it so much harder to condense the desired information.

 

An excellent example of a cache page reduced to the necessary basics is the output of a GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) HTML export. With the URL's removed the display would be perfect for a printout (yes, I could do that, but I'm trying to REDUCE my steps).

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Once I've decided to print a page that means I already examined the initial/original cache page and decided I'm going after the cache. I already looked at the map (zooming in and out), I've enjoyed the spiffy frog graphics and icons and such and once printed any URL links will not be usable. At this point I just want the basics.
I'm not like that at all. I take only the most cursory look at each cache online, just to make sure it's not disabled and the last log was a smiley. Then I print it. Out in the field, my wife and I use the printout to look at the map, the description, the decrypted hints, and the log entries. A minimal printout wouldn't do.

 

I really like the way this page is coming together. Just waiting for the logs ...

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I like the new idea of the print friendly page. It looks like something for everyone's style of geocaching.

Now, how do I get the hint to decrypt on the printer friendly page?

And how do I get some of the latest logs to be on the page?

Edited by Bluefeather
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Intersting.. just saw this thread today.

 

I just pushed out some new updates. One of them is a new Print Friendly Page.

 

You can reorder sections and show/hide them before you print. There is also an option to set the zoom level of the map.

 

Take a look: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...2a-39a7108c0102

 

-Raine

Hiding the sections is neat!

 

Showing them again causes my MSIE to crash and close. I've tried it on multiple cache pages and it did it every time.

 

What version of IE?

 

It works fine in Opera 9, IE 7, Safari XP and FireFox 2 and 3.0 beta

 

-Raine

Sorry, was out of the office yesterday.

 

I use IE 6, and it's still crashing whenever I show a section that has been hidden.

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Looks good but I'm missing the Last-5-Logs-Feature too :mad:

 

It also would be great if the page could remember which section I want to see an which one I want to hide. I've to do the same clicks every time to set up my layout.

 

btw: If you decided to decrypt the additonal hints there is no way back to reencrypt them than relodaing the complete page (which'll reset all other changes)! :D

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The printer friendly page is still not working right one time it will print the coordinates and the next time it wont. gc13kyf some times it will print the map on a second page some times on the first page.when it does not print the coordinates it prints the map on a second page. gc13ffa

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I guess Raine and others have their hands full with "print friendly" pages. No one seems to ask why the long description text has to appear in a narrow strip like a newspaper column. I can make it go across the page by selecting "print friendly no logs" but then I get no info at the top of the page like cache name, coords, well just the GC #. All this info goes away also when I select "hide images"

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We also print out pages and the new changes are great.

 

We'd always have to shrink our pages down from 100% to 75% and if there were photos, I would have use netscape and edit the page to remove the photos. Time consuming......

 

I also look like the other conversions and map choices, those maps will help us I think we go to Australia in late August.

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The new print friendly pages are nice but there is one major bug. In IE7, when I click the decrypt button, on screen everything shows correctly but when choosing print preview and the coords are not showing and will not print. All of the coord information will print if decrypt is NOT chosen.

 

JD

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I'm not sure what Backup means by "tables".

 

"Tables" are text or graphic boxes used to format a page. The same "tables" are used in MS Word, and just like MS Word the table borders and lines can displayed or hidden. I've never looked at the PDF version (not to mention that PDF is specifically designed to display text in a non-changeable format).

 

Someone who simply prints the page "as is" would not notice the tables. But because there is so much extra on the "print friendly" page (which is what started me on this topic - golly, gone full circle already), I use cut-n-past into a MS Word doc and the tables just make it so much harder to condense the desired information.

 

An excellent example of a cache page reduced to the necessary basics is the output of a GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) HTML export. With the URL's removed the display would be perfect for a printout (yes, I could do that, but I'm trying to REDUCE my steps).

 

..then why not print "as is" ? Sounds like you are making more work for yourself when you could be going caching.

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To clarify a bit, I want to be able to print multiple caches, perhaps 4-5 on one sheet.

 

 

It sounds like you want a custom solution which usually can be done via several applications that can manipulate GPX. That would, of course, require a Premium Membership to get access to the XML data. Since it is in a well structured format you can slice and dice the data any way you like.

 

There has been one recent request to output a GPX file from the site into PDF format. I like the idea and it is on the long todo list. In the meantime I'd direct you to the waypoints page which offers various flavors of free or nagware applications that can do varieties of what you want.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/waypoints

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Eek!!! Help! Blecch! First thoughts on the so-called 'printer-friendly' that I printed today.

Yesterday, I got the same sort of condensed pages that I usually get. Same blurb, disclaimers, meaningless map, and decryption of additional hints. Hey, I like it that way!

Today, I got pages that may or may not include coordinates, frog lookig at a cache in place of the map, no way to decrypt the hints, and a second page with a (basically) useless map. I've quickly started calling this the 'printer unfriendly version.' I get a better, and more printer-friendly version, printing the original page. Definitely a step backward. Can we have the previous 'printer-friendly' version back? Please??

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We tried the new print friendly papers yesterday for the first time. I liked being able to hide the images, map, list of trackables, and/or long or short descriptions. Pretty customizable. Only problems were placement date on right was cut short and no option to to decypher the hint. My old eyes found the page to be easily read and I liked the size being listed to the right of it's icons - again old eyes. I use paper when caching with my frieds and my PDA when alone. As I prefer to cache with my geobuddies these improvements were quite welcome.

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The new design looks better.

 

But it's buggy: some printouts do not show the Header (logo, frog, coordinates, size, log count ...)

 

I miss the "distance from home coordinates" very much

 

It's a nice feature to rearrange the layout. I like to have the map on the top page (for route planning). Therefore I move it to the top. But why do I have to do this for every single print? It would be much easier, if my personal layout was saved in a cookie or - better - in my profile.

Edited by Inder
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The new print friendly pages are nice but there is one major bug. In IE7, when I click the decrypt button, on screen everything shows correctly but when choosing print preview and the coords are not showing and will not print. All of the coord information will print if decrypt is NOT chosen.

 

JD

 

I'm using IE7 and am not having any problems at all. The descriptions are the correct width, the coordinates always print out, the hint decrypts well. I am really enjoying the new pages!

 

The only quibble I have is that I'd like to see "distance from your home coordinates" put back somewhere near the top.

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I usually mock the paper people quietly from afar, seems how I got this cool pda thing. Unfortunately its broke and had to get sent back. Today was the first day in over a year that I have had to use paper. I really like the new setup with all its collapsible things.. one that I would really really really pretty please with sugar and cherries and banannas on top like to see is the hints to be decoded... I know the key prints out with them I am just to darn lazy to decode something now that I am used to not having to with my PDA. I promise I won't ever mention somebody's shoes again :smile:

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I usually mock the paper people quietly from afar, seems how I got this cool pda thing. Unfortunately its broke and had to get sent back. Today was the first day in over a year that I have had to use paper. I really like the new setup with all its collapsible things.. one that I would really really really pretty please with sugar and cherries and banannas on top like to see is the hints to be decoded... I know the key prints out with them I am just to darn lazy to decode something now that I am used to not having to with my PDA. I promise I won't ever mention somebody's shoes again :unsure:

 

You can have the hints decoded automatically before you print out the page. On the printer friendly view, on the right-hand side of the page, you will see the decryption key ("the alphabet thingy", as my husband calls it). Immediately above it in blue letters you will see the word "decrypt". Just click that before you print out the page. The "alphabet thingy" will disappear, but the hint will no longer be in code.

Edited by whistler & co.
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