Truly Undescribable (HTML? extensions)

[megahertzman]

Okay, now I'm trying to make my Web site more professional looking.
It's hard to explain, but on some sites I've noticed they have an HTML page and when a person clicks 'Printer-friendly version', it doesn't take them to a separate HTML page, but the same one - just with an extension to the *.html.
They have an html file with options following the html on the URL like ?print=yes or ?print=no. Get it?
Here is an example:

HTML page:
http://www.cayman.com/en-us/support/technotes/software/netoctopus/NTO_027.html

HTML page Print version:
http://www.cayman.com/en-us/support/technotes/software/netoctopus/NTO_027.html?print=yes

HTML page non-Print version:
http://www.cayman.com/en-us/support/technotes/software/netoctopus/NTO_027.html?print=no

I know it's confusing and maybe kind of pointless, but I think it saves space on the server, and of course makes it a little more professional with this kind of cheap tricks.

Post if you any idea. Thanks.

[rainbore]

There was a good article on this subject over on webmonkey a couple of weeks ago. The author demonstrated the use of multiple stylesheets to support media-dependent formatting. Check out:

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/authoring/stylesheets/index.html

Richard L. Trethewey
www.rainbo.net

[Atomic-Design]

I think I remember seeing this odd thing on another website. I believe it might be CGI.

[megahertzman]

Yes, it is done in CGI (for putting default values in variables) but I'm asking how can I do this in HTML.

Stylesheets are different. They do talk about CSS on Webmonkey, but the extensions I was talking about are in a different category, I think. CSS defines a way HTML is supposed to be output.

Anyways, if someone knows how this can be done with HTML, please post.

Thanks. :)

[Atomic-Design]

I don't know CGI. There are many knowledgable people in the Perl/CGI forums. You should probably post there ... the link is here:

http://forum.powweb.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=8

[Binar]

What you require does not need anything as fancy as CGI
the printer friendly version can simply be made by writing a
stylesheet for a paper printout which is essentially everything in
black text and where you want the page to break etc. thats it.

the print friendly eg printer.css should be placed in front of any
other *.css file

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

eg screen.css would be the color version of your page

cheers