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asp.net-mvcprintingbatch-processingrotativa

Batch print multiple orders with a given template from MVC

I have a simple 'administration system' written in MVC. It is for an eCommerce business and I'm looking for the best way to physically print a batch of orders with a single button press.

The system is MVC5 at the moment and uses an ASP.Net Web API to get order data. My API can easily return the orders I want. But my question is how to print that collection of orders with a specific template.

So far I'm using an MVC view and the excellent Rotativa to convert my view to PDF an allow me to print. This is only really good for a single order, but my requirement is one button that prints all orders (within a given filter).

Any ideas on how to approach this?

Solution

  • I figured out how to do this using Rotativa.

    Rotativa respects the CSS 'page-break-after' attribute so using this, you can add a page break in your view whenever you want to page break, thus allowing the use of a foreach loop in your view to enumerate orders.

    In my controller I have the following action that responds to the 'print all' button. The height and width measurements relate to the standard size for an A4 sheet of paper:

        public ActionResult Print()
    {
        var r =  new ActionAsPdf("IndexPrintFormat") 
        { 
            FileName = DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString()+".pdf",
            PageSize = Rotativa.Options.Size.A4,
            PageOrientation = Rotativa.Options.Orientation.Portrait,
            PageHeight = 297,
            PageWidth = 210
        };

        return r;
    }

    My controller also has an action called "IndexPrintFormat" which renders the actual view i want printed. This enumerates a collection of orders and after each order adds a P which uses the following CSS

            .breakhere {
        display: block;
        clear: both;
        page-break-after: always;
    }

    The P is as follows

    <p class="breakhere"></p>

    The whole 'IndexPrintFormat' view is roughly as follows (cut down here to get to the point of the post)

    @model <MyViewModelPathGoesHere>

@{
    Layout = null;
}

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
    <style>
        .breakhere {
            display: block;
            clear: both;
            page-break-after: always;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    @foreach (var order in Model.Orders)
    {
        <div>
//display whatever you want to display for each order here

//This causes a new page in the PDF
            <p class="breakhere"></p>
        </div>
    }
</body>
</html>

    I hope this helps someone in the future! :)