I've posted this elsewhere but thought this community mau also be a good fit...
I am a Real Estate appraiser and have some limited experience with vb and .net. I have a task which I perform which requires me to go to the conuty appraisers web site and print a copy (to image bmp or jpg or directly to the default printer) of the current public record info for anywhere from a few pages to 1,000 plus records at a time.
I don't really get paid to do this part of the job so they don't care whether it takes me a few minutes or several hours to do this. I thought there must be a way to automate this process, so last week I started searching and test code snippets.
What I have to date opens an instance of IE; navigates to the reguested page; finds the form elemet for AcctNo; fills it in and submits the form. The page that comes back is formatted for screen presentation and is not suitable to be sent to the printer. There is however a link which when clicked returns a page formatted for pinting. Downside is it also brings up the print dialog which then has to be handled. I was able through several methods to click either the print button or the cancel button which leaves me with a document that is either sent to printer or sitting on screen.
The questions are:
1.Is there a way to do this without displaying the Print Dialog? Maybe a HTTPRequest or HTTPWebREquest as I have no need to see the screens just need the final page.
2.The resultant page is typically longer then letter by a few lines and wants to print on two pages. It would be nice to resize the page to fit and typically it will be the same resizing.
3.If I stick with the print dialog either clicking print or cancel how can I intercept the document and decide by options set in the program wheter to send the file to the printer or save to image?
I am sure I am working too hard to do this and figured there was someone out there who could answer this in a second while I've spent the better part of 3 days trying to figure it out.
I enjoy the challenge of figuring thigs out so pointing me at a class or some site is greatfully appreciated, however example code is helpful as I am not a seasoned programmer and basically take examples and change them to fit my needs.