printing with javascript

can someone point me in the direction of some decent documentation of how to print a file with javascript from a browser?

Any help is appreciated.

No one replying? Possibly because there's no real documentation

Start by trying:

window.print()

If you're printing a different frame then IE needs to set the focus first:

var isIE = null
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1) {
isIE = true
}
if (isIE) {
parent.frame.focus()
this.print()
} else {
parent.frame.print()
}


Don't know about any lesser browsers such as NS4 though!

Oh yeah, and before adios berates me once again for saying window.something when the window. isn't needed, I just do things that way okay?!

So you can use print()

instead of window.print()

Oh, and added to all that. If you're printing anything other than the web page it doesn't work. You can't print any old file from the users filesystem because that would be dangerous. If it's something that is pretty secure and being used by people you know then you could get them to download an HTA version or a Java method of doing it. But really it's not worth the effort.

May be that's not what you're after but I'm just suggestin'!

actually that's exactly what I was looking for... you see I'm trying to escape having to print from the browser window becuase the browsers impose all sorts of whacky formatting. I need to be able to print data retrieved from a database onto a page in very specific locations. So I am trying to figure out how to initiate a print command to print a generated text file that would reside on the server.

What you could do is format it all nicely (but no need if it's just a text file). Then have PHP or ASP load the text file into a very simplistic web page and print that using the print option of the browser.

Banks such as Smile (I've noticed) give the option to ask for print formatting on a page when printing. This opens a new window with a neat version.

It's possible to do a media option in CSS that allows for different CSS properties for screen and print display. So you can hide things when a page is printed out without having to do any changes on screen. (This is something I have been planning on getting around to, eventually).