# Printing an Email **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 14, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532 "2021-01-14T16:54:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/1 "2021-01-14T16:54:11Z")
Is there a way to print just the text of an email so it doesn’t show the "From, To, Date, etc? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/2 "2021-01-14T16:56:57Z")
Copy it into a Word doc? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/3 "2021-01-14T16:58:20Z")
ObPedant: those are technically part of the email. “Printing the email” means printing those too. But understanding that you only want the body of the thing printed… Maybe look for a way to print only highlighted text and only highlight the body of the email? Even more crude, highlight the text, copy to clipboard, open a text editor or word processor, paste the clipboard and print that document. Anything more convenient or less clunky will depend very specifically on what you’re using to view your email. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/4 "2021-01-14T17:06:44Z")
On Chrome I can highlight the text I want to print, right-click and select “Print…” and only the highlighted text will be there. In the case of an email, the page header will still have my email address at the top. Under “More Settings” un-checking “Headers and footers” will remove this too. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/5 "2021-01-14T17:07:23Z")
Screen shot it into your photo program then crop off the bits you don’t want. Insert it like you would a photo into another email or whatever. Easy Peary! ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/6 "2021-01-14T17:12:27Z")
Highlighting the portion I want to print doesn’t work. That was the first thing I tried. So I took an extra second to think about it and figured out the easiest way. I highlighted the text, Control C to copy, went to Microsoft Word, then Control V to paste it into a new document. Thanks for your suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/7 "2021-01-14T17:13:42Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Copy it into a Word doc? You figured it out before me! ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/8 "2021-01-14T17:14:58Z")
I think we’ve all been there at least once. Selective printing is inconsistenly implemented, and that workaround is quite reliable. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/9 "2021-01-14T17:46:23Z")
Taking a screenshot and printing that would work too, but obviously less easy to control the output size. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/10 "2021-01-14T20:37:42Z")
> [@Tabco](#): > > On Chrome I can highlight the text I want to print, right-click and select “Print…” and only the highlighted text will be there. Didn’t know I could do that! Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2021, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/11 "2021-01-15T00:19:58Z")
Really? My photo app easily allows to adjust the size before pasting somewhere! ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2021, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/12 "2021-01-15T08:01:00Z")
You’re right of course, I was just alluding to the fact that it may need a tweak to print at the size you want, whereas Word is already a standard A4/US Letter size. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/13 "2021-01-16T16:05:26Z")
Just don’t do it like this: > **[Workaround](https://xkcd.com/763/)** > > I once worked on a friend's dad's computer. He had the hard drive divided into six partitions, C: through J:, with a 'Documents' directory tree on each one. Each new file appeared to be saved to a partition at random. I knew enough not to ask. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2021, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/printing-an-email/930532/14 "2021-01-18T14:35:12Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Just don’t do it like this: > [xkcd: Workaround](https://xkcd.com/763/) 🤣