Print Wide html reports using Excel

[gaurav]

Hi
We have very large html reports that gets printed on the client machine from
our Windows based application hosted on a citrix server.

Since the reports are very wide with lots of columns, we cannot print them
directly from the browser and internally convert it to a excel file using
Microsoft Excel Automation Library (COM) and then print the report.

I have a couple of questions :

1. Is there a better way to create a excel document without using Microsoft
Excel Com Library that takes html as input and generates a Native format
Excel file format as output ?

2. We plan to host a seperate service on a standalone Production server that
just takes the html as input and outputs a pdf document ( internally the html
gets converted to Microsoft excel file using Excel Com library and then
covert the excel file to pdf. This pdf is then supplied to the requesting
Production server, which actually prints the pdf document on the client
machine.

In case we use scenario 2 , I am not sure how the Microsoft Excel licencing
will work. Since we have actual Microsoft Excel library installed on only one
Production server, is it ok to assume that we will need only server licence
for that machine.

Thanks in advance.
Regards

 

[Peter T]

Re 2 first, On the basis of AFAIK: As for licensing you only need an
appropriate Excel license on the machine that has Excel installed (or any of
its components). There are no restrictions to view or print Excel files in
some other app in machines without Excel or a license. Further, the Excel
file format is open-source, it's legal for a third party app to make an
Excel file from scratch, read or modify it.

Re 1. Not sure I quite follow. If you have Excel available on one machine,
do whatever on that. Thereafter you can transport it to a machine without
Excel but that has some other app sufficient for your needs. As I mentioned
above, there are apps out there that will make your Excel file from scratch,
if you are adventurous there's even free source code available (a *steep*
learning curve). Not sure it'd be worth it though, even if free.

Regards,
Peter T