Sending a file to the printer?

[radar]

Alright so I've got some files being generated on the fly via database information.  User clicks a button, which gathers that database information, puts it all into a file (*.tpl - which is really just an html page), then sends the file to the printer.

 

Question is, how do I send the file to the printer queue of the computer that viewed the webpage?

 

On a side note, is it easier/better to do the HTML layout or write a default.doc, then read that and copy the files to a new file and print that?

 

or perhaps just hit a 'view & print' button, which opens up in a new window the size of the 'image' that needs to be printed, and have a print button on that page.

[petroz]

It really depends on the server type. I know IIS makes it pretty easy to print, but with linux/apache, its almost impossible unless you write a socket. Check out

http://php.net/manual/en/function.printer-write.php

 

If anybody know's a built-in way to send the file to a linux/apache printer, please correct me!

 

Also, googles working on something similar..

http://code.google.com/apis/cloudprint/docs/overview.html