In the old SDMB format, there was a button at the bottom of every thread which would take you to a printer-friendly version. I don’t see this in the new format. Is there some button that performs the same function?
At the top of the thread in the medium blue bar, click the Thread Tools button, and a drop down menu will appear. One of the options is to display a printer-friendly version. Click this.
When I try to print text out now, it includes a “box” format which I can’t delete in the Show/Hide view. (The non-printing chatracter is like a tiny “sun” icon.)
How do I get it to print in regular text format, as it used to?
Before the upgrade, the printer friendly pages had a hyperlink to the effect of “show all x number of posts on one page” which made it easy to print or save entire threads in one fell swoop. Now, the feature is replaced by a 50 post maximum, and editing the URL to a larger number has no effect (stays at 50 posts).
Does downloading a >50 post thread in its entirety kill hamsters? 
I assume the 50 post limit is a default setting that hasn’t been changed yet.
May I have an answer to my question? It’s been three weeks.
Copy/paste the entire thread into Notepad?
Somehow I equate that with trying to park a Cadillac in a closet, to use Cecil’s own phrasing…especially given the size of the thread. I have Notepad on my PC (Windows 98 Plus!) but I know nothing about how to use it.
:eek: You need to know Notepad to use the SDMB… how else are you going to save your posts while subitting them so they don’t get eaten by hamsters? 
I’m not sure where you’re seeing the “sun” icon (assuming you mean this: ¤ ) but as for the box format, it appears to be a built-in feature of the new board layout. One possible solution: right-click the page in the middle of some text; go to View Source (this will bring up a Notepad window); go to Search->Replace; type in <table in the “find what” text box, and something meaningless like <ipu in the “replace with” text box; hit Replace All, wait for it to finish, then hit Cancel, and save it in a temporary folder. You’ll want to add an .htm extension to the filename if it doesn’t already have one, and make sure the Save As Type text box says “All files” not “Text files”. Then you should be able to open it from Explorer or File Manager and print it out.
This works by doing away with those clumsy <table> tags; unknown tags such as <ipu> are ignored by web browsers.
Well, I’ll try that…
Yes, that’s the “sun” icon I mean; it shows up when I hit the Show/Hide icon on the toolbar. And I can’t delete it.
If you’ve ever read any part of the “surreal continuing thread” in MPSIMS, you know it’s quite voluminous. By the time I caught on to the “printer friendly version”, I had printed out about 13 of the 22 web pages for the thread and I have already filled two binders. But the last few posts of the thread were added after the SDMB was reformatted.
When I was preparing to post, I would write the copy for the day’s posting on a tablet, then key it in on MS Word; then do the copy-and-paste shtick to copy it into the Reply to Topic box.
There’s a Help box for Notepad in my Windows version, so I’ll experiment with that, as well as testing the procedure you’ve suggested. Thanks again. 