http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/how-to-print-from-webservices/ Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:34:34 +0000 hourly 1 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/how-to-print-from-webservices/#comment-113012 TomLiotta Fri, 02 Nov 2012 03:36:27 +0000 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/how-to-print-from-webservices/#comment-113012 I’m not aware of any way to send a .HTML file to any printer, Windows or otherwise, and to have it print anything but the .HTML source unless the printer itself has a rendering capability built into it. (I suppose some such printers exist; I just haven’t run into any.)
 
HTML needs to be rendered. For the most part, rendering engines are built into browsers; so browsers are what are capable of printing .HTML files (other than as source/text). There are exceptions such as some word processing programs since there are open-source rendering engines; but those are generally intended for GUI environments.
 
There might be various exceptions.
 
One that looks promising is the Pdfcrowd (Print HTML to PDF Java) API. Although it doesn’t print, it does generate a .PDF that might be more easily sent to a printer. I haven’t seen the API work in an AS/400 server environment, so it’s just a possibility, and there might be other similar functions out on the internet..
 
Or the .HTML might be placed in a shared directory. A remote command might then be sent to Windows to print the document using Internet Explorer or other browser by passing command-line parameters.
 
Batch or background printing of .HTML on Windows doesn’t seem to be a very popular (i.e., well liked) topic. Searches show plenty of links, but few searchers seem to locate satisfying answers. Trying the same on a non-graphical back-end server seems doubly troublesome.
 
Tom

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