1.5 Print broke - shows html tags

[Bruce Hochstetler]

Hi,

Upgraded to v1.5. Previously with 1.1 when I printed the report, no problem, printed as expected. BTW, the data is generated by the radeditor, so it has embedded html tags. Now with 1.5, the tags are printed. Is there something I'm missing? I currently have the Reporting.dll, Reporting.Interfaces.dll, and Reporting.Processing.dll in my bin. Is there some other dll required?

Thanks,
Bruce

[Svetoslav]

Hi Bruce,

The new version of Telerik Reporting introduces a new printing mechanism that uses the reporting built-in paging and rendering engine. It does not depend on the browser printing capabilities any more. Since the new printing is based on the Image report rendering engine, it cannot render HTML. So this seems to be a kind of a problem.

Below you'll find a simple javascript function that enables the old printing behavior and workaround the problem with the HTML tags but you'll lose the better paging. Place the function right after the ReportViewer tag like this:

            <telerik:ReportViewer ID="ReportViewer1" runat="server" />
            <script type="text/javascript">
                ReportViewer.prototype.Print = function()
                {
                    this.printFormat = "Default";
                    this.DefaultPrint("Default");
                }
            </script>
 
Another possible workaround is to render the HTML as plain text (you will lose any formatting). Just use the built-in function StripHtmlTags for the value of your TextBox items that accept HTML. Here is a sample binding expression that assumes your data source have a field named HtmlText that has HTML text:

=StripHtmlTags(Fields.HtmlText)

and you have to set this expression to the value of the text box that will displays HTML.

Finally, you can revert back to v1.1 until we find a solution of the problem. Please have in mind that this is a workaround until we find the best way to enable the HTML rendering in Image format.
 

Greetings,
Svetoslav
the Telerik team

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[Bruce Hochstetler]

Hi Svetoslav,
I'll give it a try and see how it looks. I would like to make one comment though. As a continued user of the Telerik products and have personally recommended them to other IT departments, I'm a little dismayed that the reporting tool doesn't really integrate very well with html; printing, exporting to pdf, etc. I have to believe many of your end-users must be using the asp.net radcontrols which includes the radeditor. This component lends itself to generating html for all its formatting. So if I want to use the editor and generate reports that use the data that was output by the editor, I've got problems. Also... its the web, it uses html, why would you guys did not consider building the report tool with all this in mind, it really boggles my mind. Anyway, I'm sorry for going off like that, but I had high hopes for using the report tool for solving some printing issues I have.

Thanks,
Bruce

[Svetoslav]

Hello Bruce,

As I've already stated we're looking for ways to enable the HTML rendering in Image/PDF formats. You may already know this is not so trivial task (please consider that the only applications that can render HTML in a satisfactory manner are the web browsers). 

As Telerik is the leading vendor of ASP.NET controls (and recently WinForms) and we have a lot of expertise in HTML rendering, we're aware that this feature is very important and we're doing our best to make it happen. Developing such a product that should cover two very different technologies - Windows Forms and Web is not a simple task and usually takes larger time.

Thank you for your patience. I hope you'll continue giving us feedback and I assure you your suggestions will be taken into consideration for the next releases.

Greetings,
Svetoslav
the Telerik team

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[Bruce Hochstetler]

Hi Svetoslav,

I tried the javascript function as you suggested, but got the same results. I cut&pasted from the email, no success. 

<telerik:reportviewer id="ReportViewer1" runat="server" showprintbutton="True" ZoomMode="PageWidth"></telerik:reportviewer>

<script language="text/javascript">

ReportViewer.prototype.Print ! = function()

{

this.printFormat = "Default";

this.DefaultPrint("Default");

}

</script>

Is there something else I need to do?

Thanks,
Bruce

[Svetoslav]

Bruce,

There is a syntax error in the code snippet from your last post - the exclamation mark is incorrect placed:

ReportViewer.prototype.Print ! = function()

Regards,
Svetoslav
the Telerik team

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[Bruce Hochstetler]

Hi Svetoslav,

I removed the '!', same result, the html markup is printed.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Bruce

[Svetoslav]

Hello Bruce,

Can you confirm that the Print function executes correctly and without any javascript errors? We've double checked that the Print function works as expected, the default behavior is replaced with the browser's print according to your requirements.
 

Sincerely yours,
Svetoslav
the Telerik team

Instantly find answers to your questions at the new Telerik Support Center

[Bruce Hochstetler]

Hi Svetoslav,

I ran the app with firefox that has firebug installed. I observed no errors in the javascript. I'm printing to a HP LaserJet 4000 printer that supports Postscript 2. Don't know if that matters. I've tried other printers and received the same result. Let me put together a sample project and I'll open a support ticket (assuming I can recreate the problem). If I can't get the reporting tool to support html, I'll have to fall back to my original implementation which was generating an html page that the user used for printing (basically a 'print friendly' page).

Thanks,
Bruce

[Bruce Hochstetler]

Hi Svetoslav,

Just a follow up on the problem. I created a sample project and of course no problem, printed correctly. What I noticed in the original app, the <script> tag was incorrect: <script language="text/javascript">, I changed it <script type="text/javascript">; and now everything is ok.

Thanks for the support.

Bruce