How To Change the Default Margins For Printed Pages
These instructions are mostly the same as for removing the header and footer text when printing pages from the Internet, but a few visitors have requested I add this page as well so here goes.
Oh, and I should mention that these are just guides, what works on one operating system may not work on others.. for that matter even different printers, browsers and a few other factors may make your print outs look different. That said, these are the settings that work for me on windows (Here's instructions for Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) and OS X Tiger (10.4)).
Internet Explorer 7
You'll have noticed that a lot of stuff has been moved in this version of Explorer. By default there's a small image of a printer in the toolbar near the top right hand side of the browser, click that and go to "Page Setup...". Below is a screenshot showing the button you're looking for. (If you've customized yours and use the old toolbar, follow the steps for IE6.) If it isn't there, try right clicking on the toolbar, find "Customize Command Bar" -> Add or Remove Commands... then in the window that just popped up, highlight the printer icon on the left side and click add.
Now, Internet Explorer acts differently than the browsers I tested. You will need to choose Paper Size: Letter Borderless from the drop down list, then set the margins to 0 (or whatever size it is you want. If you don't choose that option from the list and try to set them all to zero, it decides that what is really meant is left: 0.25, right: 0.251, top: 0.066 and bottom: 0.5... weird huh. The default margins for IE are all .75.
Internet Explorer 6
Same as above for IE 7, except to get to the settings, go to File, then Page Setup. After that it's exactly the same steps.
Firefox
Choose "File" (it's in the menu in the top left corner of your browser), then go to "Page setup..". then click on the second tab called "Margins & Header / Footer". From there adjust the margin numbers to a smaller setting (zero works). Now you should be able to print larger images without getting the edges cut off. The screenshot below shows the screen I mean. Firefox's default margins are set at 0.5 inches if you need a reference to put it back to default at a later time.
I found a really handy extension that you might like if you do a lot of printing and want a quick way to access the print preview feature from within Firefox. It's called Print / Print Preview extension and it adds a submenu to your context menu (the menu that pops up when you right click on a webpage) with "Print", "Print Preview" and "Page Setup". Very helpful, I'd used it for a while on XP and it saved me a lot of headaches getting the printer to print exactly as I wanted.
Opera
Go to "File", then choose "Print Options..." then set the margins to the width you want. It does take zero as a margin setting without getting wonky like IE.
Other Browsers
Since all printers, browsers and even operating systems act slightly differently, these tips may not work for you. If you find better ways, please contact me and let me know what is working for you. (Please include which browser, OS and printer type). Since I don't have access to Linux right now, I can't supply screenshots or instructions. If you have a different OS or browser, and know how, if you can send me the info how to adjust margins and remove headers etc. (a screenshot if possible would be very appreciated as well), I'd be extremely happy.