OK Web Gurus, please advise...

So I'm setting up a website for someone and I'm wondering about a couple of things, specificially:

1) They said they'd like it to be printable (just in case). Well most websites aren't, they simply go off the right hand side of the page e.g. blitz home page, bbc news, grey alien games etc because they have a fixed size which is wider than a page of A4 paper. If I don't give it a fixed size, fine it will fit on a page of A4, and it will show all the text on-screen at resolutions lower than 1024x768 by wordwrapping, but I can't really make a "nice" layout with tables if I do that. Run it high res and all the text will stretch really wide (imagine it on a widescreen laptop!) but the images will be the same size so the layout screws up and it doesn't look the same on all PCs. So shall I tell him, sorry no go on the printable version?

2) OK let's say I go fixed width using a table, which I presume it would be best to centre rather than left-align, yes? I was thinking of making it 800 pixels wide (with a small border round it) so basically it will be full-screen on 800x600 (not many people run windows like this any more according to stats) and nicely centred and with the same layout in 1024x768 and higher. Is this the way to go?

3) Finally, should I fix the font size (to ensure consistent layout) or allow it to be scaled by the user (for hard of sight etc). Most sites have a fixed size font including bbc news believe it or not. Seems a bit inflexible, but if I was using option 1 (non-fixed size table), I may as well allow a non-fixed size font.

Opinions/Rants welcome thanx!

Oh an if you've got any "web design tips" links please post 'em, thanx again.

1) Just add a link to a 'Printer friendly page' that outputs text only. I wouldn't let printing interfere with the graphical layout.

2) I prefer fixed width, centre aligned.

3) The browser should allow font scaling (firefox does), so I wouldn't bother.

1) You can use CSS to define different layouts for different media types/platforms such as screen, print, TV and mobile device. Check out the following tutorial http://www.javascriptkit.com/dhtmltutors/cssmedia.shtml

2) You'd have to check the statistics of your audience, but only a small number of people use 800x600, but we're still probably talking about 20% - but percentages may vary for the the specific market you are targetting. Don't forget to take the scroll bar into account, hence 800 should be 760ish.

Thanks both of you for the info and opinions. Any more?

1) Firefox can scale the website before printing, just click the "shrink to fit" option... and I think IE7 finally has a similar feature too. Since you really should use only the latest versions everybody should be able to print the site no mater what the width. Of course printing is in practice still buggy even in FF, just try to print a page that has transparent .PNGs :) (strange that it can SHOW them OK, but messes up the printing... oh well).

2) IMO centered

3) Don't mind if it's scalable... people do have wide variety of monitors - like I use 1600*1200 LCD at work but my laptop is 1280*960... so what looks huge on my laptop is tiny on my work monitor.

IE 6 doesn't have a sxale to fit unless I'm mistaken and if I can't find it then chances are 1billion other people can't :-)

So yeah I'm pretty much going with fixed width table (just under 800 pixels) and non-scaleable font.

http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp