I find tremendous beauty in the idea that HTML is just a syntactically structured document and in a perfect world you can render it to paper, voice, braille reader, screen, e-ink, etc. I'm equally attracted to the idea of asking an HTTP API for your desired content-type.

But in practical terms it's often just a distraction. You should do it if it's worth doing. I can imagine some websites having almost zero audience for "I want this printed" while others probably have a considerable audience (though oftentimes they just point to a .pdf which offers better layout guarantees). Some websites should be printable.

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SoftTalker 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Any kind of statement, confirmation, or receipt should be printable. Some places still require printed documentation of expenses for reimbursement (even if it's only to turn around and scan it; you can argue it's silly but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen). A paper print is also an easy, cheap, immutable and durable one-off backup for anything you're looking at on your screen.

	▲	dofm 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes. Also any press release, privacy policy, terms, ideally your contact page and user account screens. Stuff that might come up in a dispute or might be necessary in PDF form in a handover document. And any documentation for a physical, offline device or appliance. From this I think it becomes obvious that the best strategy is to make the site as a whole at least not a total train wreck when printed, and then to focus effort a little more on the specific screens. People who print are quite tolerant of small issues, I find. They are used to much worse.