Rather than do the smart thing and go to bed......... (LOL)
If the rendering of Windows Help And Support is web browser engine based,
then it's possible there is font control. A web page encoded with no
font information, might accept the web browser "default" font choice.
Then, you'd have an opportunity to change it.
I had read similar on a web site, but hadn't tested that theory. But on
initial experimentation, it does seem the default serif font selected in
IE9 on my Win7 'puter is what is used for printing. But, unlike Firefox
and probably others, there is no option for the font size. I'd like to
be able to control bolding also, but no more experimenting tonight!
If, on the other hand, all the "web-ish" content used to create the
help pages, includes complicated schemes for controlling fonts, then
you might have no choice in the matter. I'm not an expert on coding
web pages, so I don't know if a "style sheet" can override user
choices or not.
I think whether or not a style sheet can be overridden is based on the
browser. In Firefox 12.0 there is a setting to allow the pages to
choose their own fonts, or use the fonts chosen by the user. I'm not
sure of other browsers.
Your starting point, would be discovering where all of that content
is stored, and examining it. It is unlikely that the web pages
are prepared in a "naive" style, such that the font controls
in the browser configuration would allow it to be changed.
"Naive"???? Or "native". <grin>
In HTML, there are controls for font sizing, line spacing, etc. I just
have to dig out my books on HTML basics, and then hopefully find the
settings/files on the hard drive. But first, I'll print some pages with
different fonts I'm considering, and see what happens. That might give
me an idea of what MS is doing in the background. Once I've figured
that out, then all I have to do is record what I did to get the "look" I
want, and all Help and Support pages will print with this look, or
should. Even if I use a PDF printer driver.
This should be a lot quicker than Ken Blake's cut, paste, and format
solution.
They wouldn't want the "spacing" to be affected, such that
their hard work is "ugly".
If MS cared about "ugly", they would not have chosen Times-New Roman as
the default font in IE. I suspect that choice goes all the way back to
whatever version of IE is installed with Windows for Workgroups.
Times-Roman has always been around. I've yet to see any computer from
any maker, or OS, that doesn't have Times-New Roman installed. Or,
installed using a different name such as Dutch.
Using fonts in typography on a computer is far, far more complicated
than most users know or care about, until the result they get isn't what
they wanted or expected.
If you subscribe to the conventional wisdom of typography, Times-New
Roman is just about the worst font to choose from if you are wanting to
use a serif font.
For fun, I viewed the source of one help file, then saved it out of
Notepad as a .txt file. Then changed the extension to .htm and ran it
through W3C's validator. 1 warning and 5 errors. <grin> I didn't
delve into the results at all, but I'd suspect that MS has used some IE
specific browser commands, which should fail a validation test.
--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2
