Printing html from an applet

Hello all,
I have an applet that displays JTables with data within them. I would like to be able to print the data in a nice looking formatted way (essentially make a printable report of the data displayed). One idea I have is to make a call to the web server and have it generate an html version of the data (it has access to the data also) and return that to the applet as a string. I then would like to print the HTML version as it should look via a browser...without actually displaying it. My guess is that this is easier than printing the table itself (including header graphics and descriptions, etc.).
However, I have never used the printing API (2D)and don't know where to get started. Can someone help me out with this? Code examples would be greatly appreciated.
(BTW: The applet is signed, so there are no problems accessing printers or other system resources)
Thanks!