How to use @RenderPage to include CSS content inline - MVC Razor

Question

I am currently exporting a page from my project into Excel which will not allow the linking of external content e.g. external CSS.

What I am trying to achieve is a simple way to include a CSS file in my view but to have it called directly from a CSS file which will have automatically been minified by Visual Studio.

So, in my view I have tried this:

<style type="text/css">
   @RenderPage("~/CSS/_ExportStyles.min.css")
</style>

but doing this returns the following error:

Server Error in '/' Application.

The following file could not be rendered because its extension ".css" might not be supported: "~/CSS/_ExportStyles.min.css".

What I know will work would be to place the CSS in a normal .cshtml file and include that, but I would lose the ability to ".min" the file which keeps the file size small and allows me to automatically strip out comments etc.

Does @Styles.Render("~/CSS/_ExportStyles.min.css") not work? — markpsmith
– markpsmith, Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 10:23
I'm afraid not @markpsmith that will add a link to the file and not include the contents inline. When you open the Export, you get the error message Problems During Load - Missing file:C:\CSS\_ExportStyles.min.css — wf4
– wf4, Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 10:35
Does it work if you put the css file in that location, i.e. C:\CSS\ — markpsmith
– markpsmith, Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 11:05
It would do, but `C:` is on my local machine... the problem is that once the file is exported, it looks for the CSS on the local machine and not the remote server. I could use a full file path but I don't want the CSS files getting pulled from the server, I wanted them to be self contained and not dependent on an internet connection. — wf4
– wf4, Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 11:20
This might help - The second answer demostrates an extension allowing you to embed the css instead of linking to it. — markpsmith
– markpsmith, Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 11:44

wf4 · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-03 09:09:12Z

21

So, it turns out that @RenderPage is not what I was looking for...

what I needed is this:

@Html.Raw(File.ReadAllText(Server.MapPath("~/CSS/_ExportStyles.min.css")))

answered Feb 3, 2014 at 9:09

wf4

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2 Comments

Dmitry Over a year ago

So, file is re-read from disk with every request?

Mosia Thabo Over a year ago

Although this works, it's a bad idea for performance.

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