Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I finally have it working, including a form that has a background image. The styling is very touch and go - very easy to have it working one moment and not the next.
My application is a hospitality reservation / crm system ( my own business ). I was surprised at the comments regarding printing - is there another alternative that I am not aware of. Are most pythonista apps technical or gaming?
I use a lot of html for email layouts so to be able to use the same for printing is very convenient. and the app allows me to modify the template anytime.
<body>
<img src="{logo}" alt="logo.jpg" width="50" height="50">
<h1>Guest Details</h1>
<hr>
<table>
<tr>
...
template = utils.template_path + '/GuestCheckIn.html'
text = None
with open(template,'r', encoding='utf-8') as infile:
txt = infile.read()
if txt is not None:
txt = txt.replace('{logo}',utils.get_file_url(utils.template_path + '/' + 'logo.jpg'))
txt = txt.replace('{fullname}', self.booking.customer.full_name)
txt = txt.replace('{fulladdr}', self.booking.customer.full_address(' '))
...
utils.print_html_orientation(txt)