Print Report without Template

Question

Andy,
Continue on to my question on thread: create a free form report, the problem with print the browser is the template will show up. I have Theme 15 and two level tabs. All my readings seem to tell me that I need to install BI publisher or XSL-FO to print out the form formally. If not, what do I do to print without the template showing?
Thanks,
Yivon

Answer 1

Hi Yivon,
If you go to Shared Components, Themes and click Edit Theme (in the Tasks list on the right), and select your theme, you will see a section called "Component Defaults". In there, is a setting for Printer Friendly Page. The template shown there is the one that will be used when you add the YES parameter to the end of the URL. Typically, this is just called "Printer Friendly".
If you want, you can create your own Printer Friendly page, but the default one should normally be ok with a slight adjustment. If you go the that page template, you'll see that things such as tabs are not defined but what we do need is add a #NAVIGATION_BAR# setting somewhere (see below).
Now for the Print and Back options.
Very often, Print is a Navigation list item. Go to Shared Components, Navigation Bar Entries. Click Create. Give the new item an sequence number and a Text value of Print then click Next. Leave the Target Type as "Page in this application". Set the Page value to &APP_PAGE_ID. (which is the current page) and tick the Printer Friendly checkbox. Then click Next then Create. You can create the Back option in exactly the same way, except that you leave the checkbox unticked.
Each item on the navigation bar can be conditionally displayed based on the value of a PRINTER_FRIENDLY application item that Apex maintains for you. The value of this will either be YES or NO. Just use the "Value of Item in Expression 1 = Expression 2" condition and put PRINTER_FRIENDLY in Expression 1 and either YES or NO in Expression 2. Neither setting should use quotes.
Now you need to ensure that the navigation list is displayed on the Printer Friendly page template. This needs to be done somewhere near the top of the Body setting on the template. How this is done will depend on your theme. For example, using Theme 3, I have changed the start of the Body setting from:
<table summary="" cellpadding="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td valign="top">#LOGO##REGION_POSITION_06#</td>
... etc ...to:
<table summary="" cellpadding="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr class="navrow"><td colspan="3" valign="top" align="right" class="t3NavBar">#NAVIGATION_BAR#</td></tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">#LOGO##REGION_POSITION_06#</td>
... etc ...This adds a new row to the top of the body's TABLE tag. Note that I have given this row a class name of "navrow".
Now, we can use a special feature of CSS styles. Any style can be created to be used only when the object being styled is displayed on screen or sent to the printer or both (which is the default, of course).
In the Header setting, after the #HEAD# string, we can add in printer only styling for the "navrow" class:
... everything above #HEAD# ...
#HEAD#
<style type="text/css" media="print">
.navrow {display:none}
</style>
</head>
... everything after </head>Now, when the page is being printed, everything on the navigation row is hidden.
I have done this on this page: [http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=41075:1]
Andy