how to print ASP.NET MVC2 view from server

Question

I'm looking for a way to print ASP.NET/ Mono MVC2 view from ASP.NET application running in Windows 2003 server. I tried code below based on Programmatically "hello world" default SERVER-side printer in ASP.NET MVC

but this outputs raw html string. How to print view as formatted text using free software?

Order layout is created as html partial view. If there is other free way to print out formatted order, I can create layout in other form instead of html.

Only free solution which I have found requires to use Windows Forms WebBrowser control but this looks not reasonable in MVC2 application which is running under Mono also.

I looked into Rotativa ( http://nuget.org/packages/Rotativa/ ) but it looks like it doesnt allow to print html.

using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Printing;
using System.IO;
using System.Web.Mvc;

public class PrintController : Controller
{
    string body;
    public ActionResult Complete()
    {
        body = RenderViewToString<TestOrder>("~/Views/Checkout/Order.ascx", new TestOrder() { Number = "1" });
        PrintOrder();
        return View("PaymentComplete");
    }

    void PrintOrder()
    {
        // https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12229823/programmatically-hello-world-default-server-side-printer-in-asp-net-mvc
        var doc = new PrintDocument();
        doc.PrinterSettings.PrinterName = "HP Laserjet 1200";
        doc.PrintPage += new PrintPageEventHandler(ProvideContent);
        doc.Print();
    }

    void ProvideContent(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs e)
    {
        e.Graphics.DrawString(body,
          new Font("Arial", 12),
          Brushes.Black,
          e.MarginBounds.Left,
          e.MarginBounds.Top);
    }

    string RenderViewToString<T>(string viewPath, T model)
    { // https://stackoverflow.com/questions/483091/render-a-view-as-a-string
        ViewData.Model = model;
        using (var writer = new StringWriter())
        {
            var view = new WebFormView(viewPath);
            var vdd = new ViewDataDictionary<T>(model);
            var viewCxt = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, view, vdd, new TempDataDictionary(), writer);
            viewCxt.View.Render(viewCxt, writer);
            return writer.ToString();
        }
    }
}

public class TestOrder
{
    public string Number;
}

Answer 1

There is an article about convert HTML to PDF using iTextSharp: http://www.dotnetspider.com/resources/43589-How-convert-HTML-PDF-ASP-NET.aspx