Howto create a (base controller) printer friendly version?

Question

I working on a project and I would like to have a printer friendly version of the Views I have. Is there anybody who already did this and have some tips how to accomplish this? (what kind Routing is used, etc.)

I was thinking of making a PrintController. In the ActionResult of a method in the PrintController to return a View with a specific masterpage.

public ActionResult Index(string printView)
{
  return View(@"~/Views/Product/Index", "PrinterFriendly_MasterPage"); 
}

Stephan Walter doesn't advice to use this kind of redirecting (tip #24) because it is not the way MVC was meant to be.

On the View there will be a link to print the page, e.g.:
- normal link: www.example.com/product;
- print link: www.example.com/print/product;

I don't want to use javascript or AJAX. Just show the same View the user is watching, only with a different masterpage (which will have specific print stylesheets).

Answer 1

What about just creating a print css which will hide navigation and whatever else you don't want showing on a print.

see http://meyerweb.com/eric/articles/webrev/200001.html and http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/ for more info.

Answer 2

Don't create separate views. Just create a print specific CSS file using media=print in the link, and the browser should automatically use this CSS when printing.

Answer 3

Thanks for the quick reply, but I it is not exactly the way I want it. I already have specific css files for printing.

Take a look at the following Dutch website for example Normal View and Print View.

I want to have a link which displays the same View but with another masterpage. In the other masterpage I include the css files for printing.

So, the user gets a View which is almost the same as "Print preview" from the browsers menu.

The advantage of doing it this way is, it will comply to the WCAG standard.

Answer 4

Why not just specify the "media" attribute in your css link?

<link href="normal.css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen" type="text/css" />
<link href="print.css" rel="stylesheet" media="print" type="text/css" />

That way you can use 1 masterpage but have both screen view and print view differently.