Our users want to cause Internet Explorer, running on an NT4 server,
to print an HTML document dynamically from a process running on an SCO
UNIX box.

The HTML documents are stored on the UNIX box.  They are visible to
the Windows users via Samba.

We know how to create a UNIX shell script from within programs
(ACUCOBOL) running on the UNIX box.  However, we do not know how to
initiate/spawn/launch/trigger a process on the NT4 server from the
UNIX server.

One of the processes we want to launch in batch mode is Internet
Explorer?s print function.  Is this possible?  Are there products
available that will do this?

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Request for Question Clarification by leapinglizard-ga on 13 Jun 2005 15:15 PDT

Your first job is to find a way to programmatically control IE
printing locally on the NT box. Once you've done that, you can write a
Unix script that will log into the NT box and do the required stuff
there. I know of several ways to handle the Unix end of this project
but I had never thought about the problem you're facing at the NT end.
Judging from what I have read just now, IE actions can indeed be
scripted.

Here's one approach.

jibbering: Snufkin Browser - Taking control of Internet Explorer
http://jibbering.com/snufkin/

Here's another.

computergripes: WSH Scripts and Internet Explorer
http://www.computergripes.com/ttdir/Wsh.and.IE.html

If the price on this question were considerably higher, I would
inquire more deeply into the matter and conduct some experiments on my
own network using a Linux box and an NT machine.

leapinglizard