hey togaroo,
In Internet Explorer you can prevent the background image being printed by selecting Internet Options from the Tools menu (IE 4+). On the advanced tab there is a node called "Printing" towards the end of the list. Simply clear the checkbox and the background should not be printed.. (I hope..) I haven't tried it myself, let me know if it works...
Other option is to save the page as plain text (*.txt) and print the .txt file. You will however lose all the text formatting on the page.
Good Luck
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