Printing From the Site

There are times when somebody visiting RagPiano.com may want to print material from the site. Since that material appears in many guises, I include some tips here on the best possible methodologies to get good results. Please note the section on Use of Material before printing for anything other than personal use.

Individual Listings

There may be a point where you might want to compile individual listings of the pieces in the MP3 and Covers section of the site. This is easily accomplished with a word processor such as Microsoft Word or even native Rich Text programs included with Windows, MacIntosh, Apple IOS and some Android devices. With the mouse, select either the entire listing, or select the text that contains the listing description. Copy that into the clipboard (Ctrl+C or Edit:Copy). Then go to your word processer document. Here you have two or more options. You can paste the text as is, which will usually be in full HTML format and retain the formatting and, if possible, the images, by using Ctrl+V or Edit:Paste. Or you can go to Edit:Paste Special and select ASCII Text or Unformatted Text to paste only the text content without images or formatting. Then you can put in a paragraph space, collect another entry, and continue pasting until you are done. You will then have the items you wanted for review in the document or for print.

Lyrics

There are many sets of lyrics accessible from both the individual listings of the pieces in the MP3 and Covers section of the site as well as the Lyrics Index in that same section. They load up in a separate window in a preset format showing only the text with no background wallpaper for the explicit purpose of printing. They may also be copied into a word processer using the methods described in the paragraph above.

Articles

The articles contained within the Resources Section are printable as is directly from the browser, and designed specifically as such. You may use the methods described in the Individual Listings paragraph to paste them into a word processor, knowing that there may be some translation issues. In some cases, such as Composer, Performe and Publisher Biographies, I have included a Print View button which displays the individual biography in a separate window with no background wallpaper so it may be printed directly, or copied and pasted into a word processor. However, to print the full article (which will not include any associated examples or related links), from the browser rather than a word processor, there is one extra step you may want to take, which is to suppress printing of the wallpaper. Given the rate that browsers like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari are progressing, there are many answers to this issue, which you will need to search on in order to get the proper instructions. Remember to include your browser version in the search, such as "Internet Explorer 11" or the current version as found in Help:About.

Images

There are many images on the site, including those within the articles, but they are all shown at either their actual size or at a reduced size until the mouse is hovered over the image. The most commonly requested ones are the Sheet Music cover images. For reasons of presentation and economy of screen space and file size, these have been limited to an acceptable size of 400H*5xxV pixels, or a varying degree of 72 to 80 dots per inch. This has also been done for copyright reasons since each cover has been digitally restored to represent a like-new condition. To print these from a source other than a browser, which is limited to printing at screen resolution size, you may use the following methods. You either drag the image into most graphics editors, or alternately right click on the image and select Copy, and then Paste it into the graphics editor.If you cannot copy the image directly to a clipboard, you can save it to a file by using Right Click, then Save Image As or Save Link As. Then you can import it into your graphics program. (Provisions will eventually be made for sharing images directly to Pinterest, but you may copy and share there or in Facebook as long as proper credit for the source is given.)

Once in the graphics processor, it sometimes works to double the size of the image, then apply a mild sharpen filter to it before printing. In any case, most graphics programs have an option to control the size of the printed output, and some printer drivers do as well. If you want a full-page representation, simply select a Size to Fit or similar option. Note that the low resolution of the file will be amplified by enlarging it, so the results will not always be satisfactory. A quarter page portrait or half page landscape print might better serve the purpose.

The alternative is to obtain a copy of the original edited file, usually in something approaching 150 dpi. These can be obtained by request from me at , but there may be some minor cost involved for more than one image file given the copyright nature and the work that went into them. Special requests may also be made for even higher resolution files up to 300 dpi, particularly for organizations that want museum quality display images, but these will take longer to process. Use of these will be governed by Use of Material rules noted within Help.