How can Print Preview be called from Javascript?

I think the best that's possible in cross-browser JavaScript is window.print(), which (in Firefox 3, for me) brings up the 'print' dialog and not the print preview dialog.

FYI, the print dialog is your computer's Print popup, what you get when you do Ctrl-p. The print preview is Firefox's own Preview window, and it has more options. It's what you get with Firefox Menu > Print...

You can't, Print Preview is a feature of a browser, and therefore should be protected from being called by JavaScript as it would be a security risk.

That's why your example uses Active X, which bypasses the JavaScript security issues.

So instead use the print stylesheet that you already should have and show it for media=screen,print instead of media=print.

Read Alist Apart: Going to Print for a good article on the subject of print stylesheets.