Printing - Oracle APEX Best Practices - page 124

You can invoke the PDF report from within your page by using a button. When you
create the button, select Download Printable Report Query from the Action drop-
down list. See the following screenshot:
Print API
Application Express also has APIs available for printing documents. These APIs are
apex_util.download_print_document and apex_util.get_print_document . Both
Print APIs have four different signatures, which they allow for programmatically
downloading report queries while dynamically associating stored report layouts
at runtime, downloading report queries with custom templates stored in your own
tables, and generating PDF based on your own custom XML by using your own
custom templates.
APEX_UTIL_DOWNLOAD_PRINT_DOCUMENT initiates download of a print document in
four ways. Each has slightly different parameters (you can read more about these
parameters at http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E23903_01/doc/doc.41/
e21676/apex_util.htm ).
The irst option is to use XML-based report data and an RTF- or XSL-FO-based
report layout:
APEX_UTIL.DOWNLOAD_PRINT_DOCUMENT (
p_file_name IN VARCHAR,
p_content_disposition IN VARCHAR,
p_report_data IN BLOB,
p_report_layout IN CLOB,
p_report_layout_type IN VARCHAR2 default 'xsl-fo',
p_document_format IN VARCHAR2 default 'pdf',
p_print_server IN VARCHAR2 default null );