Print button not working on iPad

[blindamood]

I'm creating HTML5 output that is being used for an iPad app, and it all seems to work fine EXCEPT for the Print button. The button appears in the header, but tapping it does nothing. Is there a known way to enable printing a topic on an iPad?

[RamonS]

I am not that familiar with iPads, but is there a printer (virtual or real) present on the device? Can you use the print function provided by the browser?

[SteveS]

From my limited experience with iPads...

iPads don't play nicely with anything. To enable the things to print you have to download an app, made for specific printers, from the apple store or whatever they call it.

Then the apps on the iPad need to be able to see the printer app. It doesn't seem to happen by default, some apps can see the printer app, some can't.

I hate iPads...

[MattyQ]

Do you know what the iOS version is? Apparently there are some known issues with Javascript-based printing on versions of iOS earlier than 4.2. I'd assume you're using a version way later than that at this point, though.

[blindamood]

Thanks for the replies. We have a developer working on the issue currently. The preliminary description of the issue is that "UIWebView component that we are using to display the help content within the app does not support the window.print() Javascript function that is being called when the print button is tapped." He's looking to see if there is a workaround. Will keep you posted if we determine a fix.

[MattyQ]

For what it's worth, this is apparently a known issue with UIWebView: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2236 ... ndow-print

[blindamood]

For what it's worth, this is apparently a known issue with UIWebView: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2236 ... ndow-print

Thanks!

[blindamood]

Thanks to the developer we have working on the app, we have come up with a good solution. He incorporated the standard action button into the frame of the window we use to display the help, and I embedded a PDF of the help output into the help output itself (there are only half a dozen topics). When the user taps the action button, they can opt to email, print, etc. the PDF file as they would any other document. BTW, we also removed the standard Print and Email buttons from the help toolbar.