How to render an ASP.NET MVC view as a string?

Question

I want to output two different views (one as a string that will be sent as an email), and the other the page displayed to a user.

Is this possible in ASP.NET MVC bet

Answer 1

If you want to forgo MVC entirely, thereby avoiding all the HttpContext mess...

using RazorEngine;
using RazorEngine.Templating; // For extension methods.

string razorText = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(razorTemplateFileLocation);
string emailBody = Engine.Razor.RunCompile(razorText, "templateKey", typeof(Model), model);

This uses the awesome open source Razor Engine here: https://github.com/Antaris/RazorEngine