You would think it would be pretty simple to print from Google Books. Simply right click on the page and then "print." Well, it really isn't that simple. Google, probably to better safeguard the various sources that allowed them to digitize books, doesn't print the page a researcher wants without a few tricks. Luckily, those tricks are not overly difficult and most anybody's computer will have the necessary capabilities.
First Approach
Open a new, blank MS Word Document. Then use the "Insert" tab and "Insert a Screenshot." Once you click on that, it lets you pick which screen to take the screenshot from. You can then crop the screenshot while in Word. The result is the first attachment. It's a good approach if you are putting a Word document together anyway, but otherwise it is a bit clunky. This also works with MS Powerpoint. If you are using a Macintosh and don't HAVE MS Word, try it with "Pages." Once you have it in Word or Pages, printing is just like printing anything else. If you don't have any of this stuff, don't worry, there are several other approaches still to come
Second Approach
Use a screenshot utility to directly take a screenshot. At home, I find "Greenshot" works very well. Then I save it as a jpg - shown in 2nd attachment. "Snip & Sketch" also works and it comes with Windows 10. Simply pick it from the start menu. For some reason "Windows-shift-S" doesn't work. Alternatively, try the "Prnt Scr" button and see what happens. This approach is simple and works well to take a picture of the page you want to print. After that, printing is just like printing a photo.
Third Approach
Download the whole book, then open in Acrobat and print the pages you want. Then you can put the downloaded book in the recycle bin or keep it for later reference. This third approach has the advantage that usually the book downloads as a searchable text pdf. The downside is that you might not be in a place where you can download a 10-20 Mb document.
Fourth Approach
Simply take a photo of the screen with your smart phone. Of course, not everybody knows how to print a photo from their smart phone. If you are one of those, email it to yourself and print the email.
Fifth Approach
The final approach works a bit differently, and so I include a graphic showing the steps below this paragraph.
Personally, I usually use either Approach 2 or Approach 3. In closing, as always, be careful to document what book, edition, and page you got the picture from - the usual sources and dates caveats apply as always.
For the example in this post, file sizes varied dramatically. The Word "screen snip" was 116Kb, which still isn't a giant file, but it is a lot larger than the screen shots in either jpg or png format, which were both just under 20Kb. The GIANT is Approach 3 which could easily exceed 10000Kb. OTOH, Approach 3 gives you the other 999 pages of that 1000 page book for when you find you wanted other pages later.
Open a new, blank MS Word Document. Then use the "Insert" tab and "Insert a Screenshot." Once you click on that, it lets you pick which screen to take the screenshot from. You can then crop the screenshot while in Word. The result is the first attachment. It's a good approach if you are putting a Word document together anyway, but otherwise it is a bit clunky. This also works with MS Powerpoint. If you are using a Macintosh and don't HAVE MS Word, try it with "Pages." Once you have it in Word or Pages, printing is just like printing anything else. If you don't have any of this stuff, don't worry, there are several other approaches still to come
Second ApproachUse a screenshot utility to directly take a screenshot. At home, I find "Greenshot" works very well. Then I save it as a jpg - shown in 2nd attachment. "Snip & Sketch" also works and it comes with Windows 10. Simply pick it from the start menu. For some reason "Windows-shift-S" doesn't work. Alternatively, try the "Prnt Scr" button and see what happens. This approach is simple and works well to take a picture of the page you want to print. After that, printing is just like printing a photo.
Third Approach
Download the whole book, then open in Acrobat and print the pages you want. Then you can put the downloaded book in the recycle bin or keep it for later reference. This third approach has the advantage that usually the book downloads as a searchable text pdf. The downside is that you might not be in a place where you can download a 10-20 Mb document.
Fourth Approach
Simply take a photo of the screen with your smart phone. Of course, not everybody knows how to print a photo from their smart phone. If you are one of those, email it to yourself and print the email.
Fifth Approach
The final approach works a bit differently, and so I include a graphic showing the steps below this paragraph.
- Pick the snipping scissors above the page image.
- Once you've picked the Google snipping tool, draw a box around what you want to save. This is done by clicking at one corner and then dragging the mouse to the opposite diagonal corner. If the image is too big for the window, dragging beyond the boundary will cause the window to scroll so you can capture more.
- When you let up on the mouse button, the "Share this clip" window will pop up. You want to copy all the image URL location and paste it into a new browser tab.
- Once you have the image in a new browser tab, then you can save it. In Windows, it saves as a "PNG" format which can be opened up with any graphics program and then printed just like a photo. It is also in a common format if you use a Mac.
Personally, I usually use either Approach 2 or Approach 3. In closing, as always, be careful to document what book, edition, and page you got the picture from - the usual sources and dates caveats apply as always.
For the example in this post, file sizes varied dramatically. The Word "screen snip" was 116Kb, which still isn't a giant file, but it is a lot larger than the screen shots in either jpg or png format, which were both just under 20Kb. The GIANT is Approach 3 which could easily exceed 10000Kb. OTOH, Approach 3 gives you the other 999 pages of that 1000 page book for when you find you wanted other pages later.
