How do I darken up print on individual websites?

Question

I am running Windows XP, using Mozilla Firefox as my browser. I've run across many websites where I have to squint my 72 year old eyes to read the printed matter on the page. I know Firefox has a solution for that under Options --> Content --> Colors, then uncheck the box for "allow pages to chose their own colors, instead of my selection above". That, of course, does the trick, for the moment. Then I have to go back and put a check back in the box. My question is, is there an add-on or software that will allow me to add websites to a white list that will darken the print on a particular website every time I use it?

By the way, my monitor is an Acer LCD model # AL2016W Bbd, if this helps.

Answer 1

The NoSquint Firefox Extension remembers font and background colours (along with zoom settings) on a site by site basis.

After installing, you can set the text colour for a site by clicking the zoom icons in the status bar

(hopefully the truncated dialog box buttons in Windows 7 will be fixed soon)

Answer 2

First and foremost, remember making your monitor darker may be useful, or even buying some tinted glasses.

Try taking a look at this article and trying the suggestions there. Essentially, you can use themes to change how the pages look.

I hope that helps! I absolutely have the same problem sometimes.

Incase the link ever goes down, here it is:

If you're like me you can get a bit of a head ache if you're staring into a white web page for too long, well yesterday I did some searching and I came across what I feel is a really nice add-on for firefox, if you want to see the end result check out this picture here:

It is the product of a few themes / add-ons, first the darkness from the page requires an add-on called "Stylish" which allows you to download a bunch of themes which will change the colors of websites automatically. Download stylish here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108

Then you need to get a specific theme, the one I am running is called "Carbon eXtreme" which you can download here: http://userstyles.org/styles/16996

If you want to search for other themes I suggest searching "Global Styles" as those ones apply globally to all the sites you visit. http://userstyles.org/styles/browse/global/all/popularity/desc/1

There is another nice style add-on which makes the screen when you first open a new page black instead of white, it's called "about:blank black" and you can check it out here: http://userstyles.org/styles/5613

Lastly, the darkened firefox is from "PitchDark 3.5.0" which can be downloaded here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1529

So basically this is a nice way to make this page darker if you don't like it being too white, we plan to in the future program something into the page to make a similar dark theme without the need for any programs like this. - Chris, IL

Answer 3

If you know a bit of CSS, or are willing to learn, the Stylish extension would allow you to customise pages to your heart's content.

Answer 4

As a workaround, maybe The Printliminator can help.

Answer 5

Easy thing to try is bump the font size up in Firefox; maybe you won't have to work with themes or CSS. Control + increases, Control - decreases.

Answer 6

Before dipping the website into developer burn some extra light onto the text of the page, dodging the graphics and other elements you don't want darkened.

There are also user stylesheets in firefox. With some recommendations at this site and userstyles.org.

One possible rule could be:

* {
  font-family: serif ! important;
  color: black ! important;
  background-color: white !important
  }

That said, there are plugins that manage user styles per site too.

If you need this on a rarer occasion you might like to use Firebug to edit styles live. It's a bit tricky to get used to though.

Finally there's accessibility features in Mac OS and probably Win XP that try to up the contrast of everything.

Using a high contrast theme
On Windows and Linux-based systems, Firefox automatically detects if you are using a high contrast theme and displays everything in your high contrast color scheme. This overrides all other other browser or web page settings, and it affects the Firefox interface itself (all menus, windows, and dialog boxes) and the content of any web page you visit. To use a High Contrast theme on Windows, go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Accessibility Options > Display and check the "Use High Contrast" option.

Answer 7

First try the Microsoft Clear Type Tuner: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx This tool allows global text rendering settings to be tuned for Windows. If you pick one of the darker flavours, all type in Windows will look darker.