MailChimp is undoubtably my favourite Newsletter software. Im sure the folks at MailChimp would rather we saw them as an integrated marketing platform, but it certainly does a top job with email newsletters.
It just works. You can insert signup forms into your website, to save your admin team from having to transcribe printout and emails – Nice. The system produces meaningful stats for the email campaigns you send out.
All good right up to the point that you want a nice printed version of your newsletter to hang on the Office notice board.
After battling with this for a while, I’ve developed a technique of sorts to remove header, footers and other pesky content you don’t want in your printed version.
Here’s my quick and dirty solution to turning that nasty looking web page into a print-worthy document.
Find your campaign URL
This is the link to the campaign
I find mine in the Campaign Details tab
It starts with https://mailchi.mp/...
Display it in a browser
Click on your Campaign URL to display your email along with Subscribe, Past issues Translate and RRS buttons at the top. At the page bottom the MailChimp footer is displayed
In Chrome right mouse click on the Subscribe button then click Inspect
We’re now looking at the code that generates that button.
I use Chrome, so if you are using something else you’ll need to translate these instructions to suit your browser
Remove the unwanted elements
In my world, a Chrome panel opens with the page HTML code for the subscribe button highlighted in a grey background – see below
Click the 3 dot menu on the left-hand side then select Delete Element
Zip – the Subscribe button disappears!
Repeat the process for the other header and footer elements until you have a clean HTML page
Print your page as a PDF
Then click Ctrl P to force the Print dialog to display (in Windows at least)
In the Print dialog Destination, select Save as PDF
The browser will transform and save your modified web page into a PDF. All the ugly elements you don’t want to print are removed – well at least you removed them 😉
Now you can then print that PDF to your printer for a clean version of your MailChimp email.
Voila – The Quick and Dirty Printable PDF
An online marketer with deep experience in Sales & Marketing as well as technical skills accumulated over the many years of working in this industry. He has been knee-deep in websites and online marketing since the mid 80’s.
Peter is a lateral thinker who sees solutions where many don’t.
Website Concierge is a reincarnate of Succinct Ideas, providing quality website support and online marketing for small businesses.
