So… you want to print a List Item (dispform.aspx) in #SP2010 #SharePoint do you? We’ll see about that!
As my project continues to go through UAT, it is always when you let your projects loose onto the world that you find the niggles and the minor issues.
So having worked out the email issues (previous post) and a few other bits and bobs. This issue came along and flumuxed me for a sec.
Scenario:
Browser: IE8, IE9
Environment: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise SP1
When opening the view item value from a list (dispform.aspx), those with a large body of text in any multiple lines of text fields appeared fine on the screen.
However on print preview / paper the text stopped at the end of the page, then it moves on to the next field.
Frustrat-icon!
I hear you say.
What on earth could that be?
I checked the previous system that I was migrating from (SharePoint 2007) and the issue was not present there. So it had to be something to do with the HTML markup right?
Well I compared the SharePoint 2010 dispform.aspx markup with the SharePoint 2007 output and apart from more divs to encase it in, the output is pretty much the same.
So I tried to override with my own print CSS but to no avail.
After Further Investigation…
It appeared to be the doc type. By default, in SharePoint 2010, this is set to IE8, where as in SharePoint 2007 it is set to IE7. This combined with IE8 or IE9 caused the issue.
Internet Explorer 10 and Chrome however, no issues.
How did we resolve?
At the moment we are potentially going to set the doc type to IE7 for this web application. We are lucky that in this scenario, this may work as a quick fix.
However, as for the full solution, that is still to work out!
Useful Links:
Group Policy reference for IE8: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3648
SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans 
Who prints anymore 😉
You set the doc type to IE7, did you try removing it, or setting it to IE9/10 instead? I wonder why go backwards instead of forwards, unless it breaks other things…. I’ve had success (albeit a few years ago, so can’t qualify success right now) in removing the IE8 doc type, however, I haven’t tried printing.
Thanks David
Haven’t tried removing it but I know setting it to IE9 breaks the people picker and causes some issues with accessibility I believe.
As for the printing, I know what you mean :-). Audit trails in this case… At least they were printing to PDF.
Giles, thanks for sharing! We’re doing a bit of experimenting with SP this year and this helped us validate an idea we were entertaining. Much appreciated…
John.
Hi John, no problem, glad you found it useful 🙂
Kind regards
Giles