Hi
I am in doubt as to which approach is the best.
Background: I have created a sales/production app in NTWS 14. For this I need to print physical delivery notes, production orders with barcodes and much more.
The question is should I choose to make it as PDFs or go with CSS and @media (could I consider taking a web form with a web browse and adding CSS as @media?)
Customers will receive an email with a link to their sales documents. In production, they need to print directly on a local printer.
Of course, I have to consider how it will be easiest to maintain and which approach is the fastest to develop.
I can see pros and cons for both directions.
Web is difficult because you’re not in control of the printing process like you are in win32. I print dockets, and I’ve chosen to do that by creating a blank web page that I ask JS to please try and print.
Would you be saving the documents or always creating them dynamically? That may have a bearing on your decision.
If you need control of placement, then you really need PDF. HTML and CSS are all very good, but the actual output formatting isn’t as locked in as PDF and a clarion report.
Like you I see pros and cons.
Hope I haven’t muddied the waters
Different web browsers have different pdf printers and we can’t control the browser used. Plus there might be paid for pdf writers installed on the computer adding another factor.
So if I was doing it, I would control it by printing the pdf’s server side and let them download the pdf from their account as a file.
Do you mean “Customers” are external users and “Production” are internal users, for want of a better description?
Customers don’t care, we are used to getting emails and/or links to print invoices etc and there is no need for automated printing processes. So yeah, generate a PDF for their needs and let them do what they like with it.
Internal users probably (?) want a hands-off automated process, rather than someone sitting there printing picking slips, delivery labels etc. (If that’s the sort of app you’re talking about?) In this case a solution is a local Windows app that accesses the data (somehow) and automatically prints whatever is needed, under control of the app.
Thanks for your input - pros and cons.
Since all physical prints are on the LAN and my server can see all printers, I think I’ll go with PDF and build a local print engine that prints from a printer queue on the server.
