How do I print an HTML document from a web service?

Question

I want to print HTML from a C# web service. The web browser control is overkill, and does not function well in a service environment, nor does it function well on a system with very tight security constraints. Is there any sort of free `.NET` library that will support the printing of a basic HTML page? Here is the code I have so far, which does not run properly. ``` public void PrintThing(string document) { if (Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState() != ApartmentState.STA) { Thread thread = new Thread((ThreadStart) delegate { PrintDocument(document); }); thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); thread.Start(); } else { PrintDocument(document); } } protected void PrintDocument(string document) { WebBrowser browser = new WebBrowser(); browser.DocumentText = document; while (browser.ReadyState != WebBrowserReadyState.Complete) { Application.DoEvents(); } browser.Print(); } ``` This works fine when called from UI-type threads, but nothing happens when called from a service-type thre…

Accepted Answer

You can print from the command line using the following:

rundll32.exe %WINDIR%\System32\mshtml.dll,PrintHTML "%1"

Where %1 is the file path of the HTML file to be printed.

If you don't need to print from memory (or can afford to write to the disk in a temp file) you can use:

```
using (Process printProcess = new Process())
{
    string systemPath = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.System);
    printProcess.StartInfo.FileName = systemPath + @"\rundll32.exe";
    printProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = systemPath + @"\mshtml.dll,PrintHTML """ + fileToPrint + @"""";
    printProcess.Start();
}
```

N.B. This only works on Windows 2000 and above I think.

How do I print an HTML document from a web service?

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