You can't ... at least not through basic web technologies -- HTTP, JavaScript, etc.

This is in the realm of DRM (digital rights management ... the stuff that's driving the 'broadcast flag' and un-copyable music.)

There is absolutely no way to completely restrict someone from printing more than one copy -- all you can do is make it more difficult and complicated. (hell, they can always xerox it afterwards, or otherwise counterfeit it).

The solutions that I've seen for these sorts of things involve hardware solutions. (specialized printers, which are locked down, and need to receive some sort of changing handshake before they'll print) ... but which someone with enough time could probably fake out

I'm guessing that if you've agreed to deliver something that you don't have experience in, such as this, that you may wish to look for companies that specialize in this sort of thing, and see what it would require to license their technology, and do a cost/benefit analysis of licensing, vs. doing a bad job on this, vs. defaulting on the contracts.

In reply to Re: Print HTML-documents just once by jhourcle
in thread Print HTML-documents just once by cmuebro

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.