WordPress Plugin
Installing
In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins, then Add New, and search for PrintFriendly. Ours is the one by PrintFriendly. Install and activate it.
Buttons appear on your posts straight away using the default settings, and you can change where they show and what they offer from the plugin's settings page.
Everything on the free button works without an account. You only need one to buy Pro.
Connecting a Pro License
Start from the plugin's own settings page rather than from our site. It sends you to our site with your domain already filled in. You sign in and pay, and the plugin then picks up the license automatically. Doing it in that order is what ties the subscription to the right domain.
If you buy from our site first and then go looking for the license in the plugin, the two have no way to find each other, and you get the most common problem on this page.
Licenses are per domain, and the domain has to match
example.com covers example.com and up to three of its subdomains, such as blog.example.com. It does not cover a staging site on somebody else's domain, like example.wpenginepowered.com, because that is a different domain entirely. Those need a development domain, below.Staging and Development Sites
Add one development domain per licensed domain from your domains page. Your staging site then behaves as Pro, so you are not testing against a free button and getting a different result when you go live.
Add it before you migrate, not after. The usual sequence behind "it worked on staging and broke on live" is the reverse: the license was on the staging host and never followed the site to production.
Common Questions
I paid for Pro but the plugin still says trial or expired#
Nearly always the license is attached to a different address than the one the plugin is asking about. Three things to check, in this order.
The domain on your account. Open your domains and compare it with what is in your browser's address bar, character for character. A typo here is common and invisible until you look for it, and it is the reason a license bought minutes ago has no effect.
Whether this site is staging. If the address is your host's temporary one rather than your own domain, see staging and development sites.
Where you bought it. If you paid on our site rather than starting from the plugin, the plugin was never told. Go to the plugin's settings page and start the connect flow; it will find the subscription already on your account rather than charging you again.
If all three look right, update the plugin to the current version and reload the settings page, then send us the domain and the email on the account.
I licensed the wrong domain, or made a typo#
Write to us with the licensed domain and the one it should be, from the email address on the account. This is not self-serve, because changing which domain a subscription covers is indistinguishable from moving a paid license to somebody else's site.
I upgraded but ads and PrintFriendly credit still show#
Same cause as above: the license is not resolving for the address you are looking at. Work through the three checks in the first question.
One extra thing worth ruling out on WordPress: a caching plugin or a CDN may be serving a copy of the page from before you upgraded. Clear both caches and load the page in a private window.
How do I put a button in one specific place?#
Turn off automatic placement for that content type in the plugin's settings, then put the shortcode where you want the button.
[printfriendly]It takes one option. current switches the button from printing the post it sits in to printing the whole page as displayed, which is what you want on a page assembled from several pieces.
[printfriendly current="yes"]Any value works, not just yes, and no other options exist. Anything else you add is ignored rather than reported, so a shortcode that looks configured may be doing nothing of the sort.
In a PHP template, call the button directly rather than running the shortcode:
<?php echo pf_default_button(); ?>Older themes call pf_show_link(), which still works and does the same thing, but new code should use the one above.
Buttons are showing where I do not want them#
The plugin's settings control this separately for posts, pages, the homepage, category listings and other taxonomy archives. Untick the ones you do not want.
If you change it and the old buttons persist, clear your caching plugin and any CDN cache before assuming the setting did not take. On WordPress that is the usual cause.
How do I hide the button on one particular page?#
The plugin's settings turn buttons on and off per content type, not per page. For a single page, hide it with CSS on that page:
<style>.printfriendly { display: none !important; }</style>Can I use custom CSS with the plugin?#
Yes, and it works exactly as it does for the pasted code: scoped to the wrapper and marked !important. Name both wrappers, #pf-print-area for the preview and the free PDF, and #printfriendly for the Pro PDF, or the rule takes effect on only some of them. The recipes are on custom CSS.
My content is members-only. Will the plugin work?#
On Pro, yes; on the free button, no. Same reason as any page behind a login: see pages behind a login or paywall.