Actually, I'm glad arbitrary HTML/Jscript has no access to external devices. That would be a blatant security hole, even if the user is prompted. An easy way to force someone to restart the browser or even the computer is loop an alert(). Imagine if any Jscript could ask you to print. I can only see disastrous and not very useful effects. You would be prompted constantly to print out ads and coupons left and right. Really lame. if you want something to be easily printable on various platforms without hassle, try the pdf format. Acrobat Reader is readily available as a plug-in for browsers. Try libpdf and Inline to throw 'em into Perl.
Update: I think that gharris' complaint is a common one. While HTML is human-readble, it is not easily well-formatted, especially with the differences in browsers these days. The simple fact remains that HTML serves its function poorly to a graphical deisgner who wants to gets some clickable images up and running fast. The situation becomes even more complicated when the designer wants to print something nicely- perhaps inserting two-pixel widths of space and a legal page size. HTML's answer is "Sorry." While adding more and more tags is alwasy an option, I think we notice that HTML is more than bloated already with various exceptions and browser inconsistencies. The solution? Don't use HTML.

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