>Is there a common technique for generating printed reports from a web app? Would it be best to generate an html page and let the user simply print the page? or is it possible to automate Word and Excel and use them as the report engine? What about running a VFP report? Would this require a COM dll?
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>Thanks

Don;

Some folks write to HTML for a printable report, but you'll never get the format to be just the way you want it without a LOT of testing and css expertise (page breaks, page width. margins, etc).

I recommend you use one of the great PDF writers for VFP apps - both XFRX and MERE are great for web apps and generate PDF's directly from VFP report definitions. The best part is that neither of these engines require a 'phantom printer definition' on the web server - which is a permissions nightmare. They both write the PDFs directly without an intermediate printer definition.

I've created probably a dozen web sites with pdf reports generated from each of these products.

Let me know if you have any questions...

Michael