programmatically print a web page

Question

I am making a program to automatically go to a website and print a page, Can't seem to make it work, I tried selenium chrome driver, problem is it doesn't work. i tried action.sendkeys keys ctrl + shift + p to no avail, the biggest problem is print preview pop-up. I tried sending JavaScript command: window.print() , but the print preview in chrome stands in my way, because you need to press enter. Is there a way in JavaScript to simulate the pressing of the ENTER key? Help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Well, after a bit of research, I found this video , if you can add these switches: "--kiosk --kiosk-printing", to the chrome driver start, it would automatically skip the print preview prompt, just as shown in the video. also, I tested this on the latest version of SRWare iron(fork of chromium), and it worked.

If you are using C# to make your program, then there is an easier solution:

    private void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        PrintHelpPage();
    }

    private void PrintHelpPage()
    {
        // Create a WebBrowser instance. 
        WebBrowser webBrowserForPrinting = new WebBrowser();

        // Add an event handler that prints the document after it loads.
        webBrowserForPrinting.DocumentCompleted +=
            new WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventHandler(PrintDocument);

        // Set the Url property to load the document.
        webBrowserForPrinting.Url = new Uri(@"http://www.google.com"); //This is what you want to change
    }

    private void PrintDocument(object sender,
        WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)
    {
        // Print the document now that it is fully loaded.
        ((WebBrowser)sender).Print();

        // Dispose the WebBrowser now that the task is complete. 
        ((WebBrowser)sender).Dispose();
    }

Found the answer in Here , this uses the WebBrowser control to navigate to a specific Url, can be a local url or from the internet, and prints it using your default printer.

Answer 2

Maybe you could you use this approach that doen't require windows forms, worked like a charm for me: With C# use Chrome to covert HTML to PDF

var process = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
process.StartInfo.WindowStyle = System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
var chrome = Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("ProgramFiles(x86)"), @"Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe");

// use powershell
process.StartInfo.FileName = "powershell";
// set the Chrome path as local variable in powershell and run
process.StartInfo.Arguments = "$chrome='" + chrome  + @"'; & $chrome --headless --print-to-pdf='c:\Users\" + Environment.UserName + @"\desktop\myReport.pdf' https://google.com";
process.Start();