Direct Printing in Asp.net

Question

In my application,i need to print my reports without converting to pdf or any other formats.I need to print the record as soon as the user clicks the print button.i have used the following code.but unfortunately,this is not direct print,it is converting into pdf and then printing.converting to pdf takes a lot of time which makes our life dreadful.Below is my code.Please help....

Private Sub imgPrint_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.ImageClickEventArgs) Handles imgPrint.Click

'Function to open connection and table

Dim dt As DataTable

Dim SQLString As String = TKSUCSearchChild.SQLWhereClause

Try

'dt = GetTableData("View_Item", SQLString, SQLOrderByClause)

'dt = Your DataTable

oRpt = New YourReportName

oRpt.SetDataSource(dt)

View_PickingSlip.ReportSource = oRpt

Dim exp As ExportOptions

Dim req As ExportRequestContext

Dim st As System.IO.Stream

Dim b() As Byte

Dim pg As Page

pg = View_PickingSlip.Page

exp = New ExportOptions

exp.ExportFormatType = ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat

exp.FormatOptions = New PdfRtfWordFormatOptions

req = New ExportRequestContext

req.ExportInfo = exp

With oRpt.FormatEngine.PrintOptions

.PaperSize = PaperSize.PaperLegal

.PaperOrientation = PaperOrientation.Landscape

End With

st = oRpt.FormatEngine.ExportToStream(req)

pg.Response.ClearHeaders()

pg.Response.ClearContent()

pg.Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"

ReDim b(st.Length)

st.Read(b, 0, CInt(st.Length))

pg.Response.BinaryWrite(b)

pg.Response.End()

dt.Dispose()

Catch ex As Exception

ShowError(ex.Message)

End Try

End Sub

Answer 1

There is no way to accomplish this becuase you can't issue commands to the client from the server to make the computer print, it just doesn't work that way. There are ways to print using pdf's, but it is not very elegant and you stated you don't want to use pdfs...other than that I think you would have write some kind of browser plugin that would have to be installed on the machine that needs to print.

Answer 2

@AGoodDisplayName is mostly right. However, you don't give details of your environment - if you're building an intranet-based application, it is possible to have the server print directly to a printer, if that printer is accessible to the server.

There will be issues with security, and it will be a problem if you have many users with many printers, but it is possible.

Answer 3

Another option (if you have a captive audience with IE/Windows) is to run an "agent" process on the client machine. You can then have a web page "poke" that process with the data to be printed. In modern IE, the easiest way to do this is with APP (asynchronous pluggable protocols).

Without the "benefit" of IE/Windows, you're pretty much stuck with PDF.