How to print a ReportViewer's report without showing a form

Question

While I realize that I could just show the form off-screen and hide it, along with many other forms of WinForms hackish wizardry, I'd rather stick with the zen path and get this done right. I have a SSRS local report (so no server) that I want to give the user the option of either viewing or printing (in other words, I don't want to force them to view to print). Unfortunately, the ReportViewer control complains about its "state" when I try to print it either as a component I'm creating explicitly in my code (inside a using() block, of course) or if I try to instantiate my viewer form and just print without ever showing it.

Is there a means to do this that will sit well with me, or should I just show it off-screen and move on with my life?

Answer 1

Check this out and see if it helps...http://scruffylookingcatherder.com/archive/2007/12/07/printing-reporting-services-2005-reports.aspx

A little explanation: It's using the SSRS web service to render the report to an EMF image then send the image to the printer.

Answer 2

I have a sample that does this posted on my blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/brianhartman/archive/2009/02/27/manually-printing-a-report.aspx

The LocalReport object can be instantiated independently of the ReportViewer control and used directly in the sample code attached to that blog post. Or you can pass in ReportViewer.LocalReport even if you don't first display the report in the UI.

Answer 3

Very interesting. Can we use the MS report functionality to create a PDF in the background to email out as opposed to printing?

Answer 4

I'm looking for the same kind of functionality but for WebForms. Any ideas?