[thelist] Prevent Printing

[Maximillian Schwanekamp]

>Is there any conceivable way to prevent printing in a web based
application?

This is really a security question - security of intellectual property.
Let's get some more info - how important is it?  Is your client mostly just
wanting to dissuade the casual user from easily printing it?  Rather like
using javascript to prevent the contextual ("right-click" on Win) menu from
accessing View Source.  Who is the target audience?  A highly generalized
demographic, or an audience with a high geek quotient?  If 95% of the
audience can not print the material, then using a print stylesheet with body
{display:none} would probably be simplest.  Geeks would circumvent this
easily of course (as noted on the List already).

If you really want to protect content, put it in a form that allows this.
Ebook software generally allows full control over printability.  Check out
eBookPro.com and Adobe's ebook solutions as a starting point.  Of course,
even these can be circumvented by the dauntless (screenshots for example),
but most content is not worth the trouble.

Maximillian Von Schwanekamp