convert html table to text without loosing format in c#

Question

I have a form application in c# that reads HTML Invoice from web I want it to be textual output to print with POS printers.

<table border="1">
  <tr>
     <td>Hello</td>
     <td>World</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
     <td>foo</td>
     <td>bar</td>
  </tr>
</table>

I am looking for something that can take the above table and create something like the following.

 ------------------------------
 | Hello     | World          |
 ------------------------------
 | foo       | bar            |
 ------------------------------

[this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3934508/printing-a-formatted-html-page-in-c-sharp) should be helpful! — Anirudha, Mar 18 '14 at 05:48
if I were you, I'd parse up the html, and have each html tag represent what you want to accomplish. So whenever you encounter a you make a series of dashes in a for loop. Go to next line, when you encounter a write your values delimited by a number of spaces and a "|", and so forth. Just find the patterns and you'd be set. — sksallaj, Mar 18 '14 at 05:58
@Anirudha All this i'm doing due to lac of graphic print support in POS printers and if i'll use myWebBrowser.Print(); or direct print from browser... then result will be same — Sahil Ali, Mar 18 '14 at 06:26
@sksallaj It's good but i stuck in how to determine spaces between two words — Sahil Ali, Mar 18 '14 at 06:28

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 18 '14 at 06:03

0

let me give a try with jquery..

var innerHtml = $('#table').html();
innerHtml  = innerHtml.replaceAll('<table border="1">','');
innerHtml  = innerHtml.replaceAll('</table>','------------------------------');
innerHtml  = innerHtml.replaceAll('<tr>','------------------------------');
innerHtml  = innerHtml.replaceAll('<td>','   |  ');
innerHtml  = innerHtml.replaceAll('</td>','  |  ');
innerHtml  = innerHtml.replaceAll('</tr>','<br />');

and u can use this innerHtml to display ur table.. this answer is jst a try.. if its totaly wrong jst doenvote i ll remove it.. or if it k for u i can help u with fiddle

answered Mar 18 '14 at 06:03

chriz

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No bro i need it in c# only so i can use text with g.dwarstring to print directly – Sahil Ali Mar 18 '14 at 06:33
you'd have to parse the html as a text file from whatever program you're using. – sksallaj Mar 18 '14 at 14:04

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 03 '16 at 11:35

The jQuery code above in C#:

string innerHtml = getHTMLInvoiceFromWeb();
innerHtml  = innerHtml.Replace("<table border=\"1\">", "");
innerHtml  = innerHtml.Replace("</table>", "------------------------------");
innerHtml  = innerHtml.Replace("<tr>", "------------------------------");
//Use tabs instead of a fixed number of whitespace
innerHtml  = innerHtml.Replace("<td>", "|\t\t");
innerHtml  = innerHtml.Replace("</td>", "\t\t|\t\t");
innerHtml  = innerHtml.Replace("</tr>", "\n");

Finally, I haven't tried the code above, I just re-wrote chriz's jQuery code. I'd take another look at this when I get near my PC.

convert html table to text without loosing format in c#

2 Answers2