Print control code

What are you doing currently?

Sorry for not replying. I seem not to be being notified of posts to subscribed threads. I'll look into that. Calling Print on a PrintDocument object raises the PrintPage event. You do the actual printing in the handler for this event. Go here and download the VB samples. They are for 2003 but you can convert to 2005 no problem. There will be at least one printing example included. You can also go here for 2005-specific samples, but I'm not sure what's there.

I've not known anyone to have problems with those samples. What goes wrong when you try to use them? Also, you can simply use the help documentation for the PrintDocument class to get info and an example.

Hi Bruni,

Here are several links to updated samples for Windows Forms printing. Hopefully this makes things a bit easier to learn.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpqstart/html/cpsmpnetsamples-windowsformsprinting.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html/vbconprintsupport.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/03/02/PrintinginNET/default.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/smartclient/understanding/windowsforms/printing/default.aspx

Let us know how it goes.

Best,

Paul Yuknewicz, Joe Stegman, & Mark Boulter

Like I said, you do the actual printing in the PrintPage event handler for your PrintDocument object. If you've added the PrintDocument in the designer, just double-click it and you'll get an empty event handler. The event handler gets passed a PrintPageEventArgs object that you use to control the printing. It's most important properties are Graphics and HasMorePages. Graphics is a System.Drawing.Graphics object which you use to actually draw string, lines, etc. on the printing surface. HasMorePages is a Boolean value that indicates whether there are more pages to print. If HasMorePages is set to True then the PrintPage event will be raised again. If HasMorePages is set to False then the printing process is finished.
Here is very simple example that prints 5 pages with the page number on each.

Private m_PrintPageIndex As Integer = 1 Private Sub printButton_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles printButton.Click Me.m_PrintPageIndex = 1 Me.PrintDocument1.Print() End Sub Private Sub PrintDocument1_PrintPage(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventArgs) Handles PrintDocument1.PrintPage Dim [string] As String = "This is page " & Me.m_PrintPageIndex.ToString() 'String to draw. Dim font As New Font("Times New Roman", 12) 'Defines the text format of the string. Dim brush As Brush = Brushes.Black 'Determines the colour and texture of the drawn text. Dim x As Single = 20 'X coordinate of the upper-left corner of the drawn text. Dim y As Single = 20 'y coordinate of the upper-left corner of the drawn text. 'Draw the string on the printing surface. e.Graphics.DrawString([string], font, brush, x, y) 'Increment the page index. Me.m_PrintPageIndex += 1 If Me.m_PrintPageIndex > 5 Then 'All five pages have been printed. e.HasMorePages = False 'Reset the page index in case this was a print preview. Me.m_PrintPageIndex = 1 Else 'There are more pages to print. e.HasMorePages = True End If End Sub

If you want to test printing without wasting lots of paper, add a PrintPreviewDialog to your form. You can set the Document property of the PrintPreviewDialog to the PrintDocument you already have. Then, instead of calling PrintDocument.Print you call PrintPreviewDialog.ShowDialog. Notice that I set the page index back to 1 after setting HasMorePages to False. This is because if you show a PrintPreviewDialog first and then print from it, the whole printing process happens twice, so you must make sure the index is reset after the first run so it is correct for the start of the second run.

The line that calls e.Graphics.DrawString is the one that actually draws the string on the printing surface. You need to put code in its place that will draw your data instead. You should read a little about the Graphics class and its DrawString method, as well as the other methods available. The first argument to DrawString is the actual string you want to print. The other arguments determine how it will look and where it will be located.

Rashin wrote:

I have spent hours searching for an answer, and I finally found it. I read your instructions. But which part of e.Graphics.DrawString am I to change? My form is called Form1 and the print Document is PrintDocument1. Thanks plz reply ASAP

I don't know how much plainer I can make it. I've included a comment where I declared each of the variables that gets passed to DrawString to describe what each of them does. If you don't understand that already then I don't know what I can say to make it any clearer.