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Print Dialogs
Let's work with print related controls provided by the .NET Framework. On a new form
drag a PrintDialog, PrintDocument, PrintPreviewControl, PrintPreviewDialog, PageSetupDialog,
MainMenu and a RichtTextBox contol. Select MainMenu and In the "Type Here" part, type
File and under file type Print, PrintPreview, PageSetup and PPControl. The menu should
look like this:File->Print, PrintPreview, PageSetup, PPControl. The RichTextBox
control is used to load some text in it which will be ready to print. The Form in
design view should look like the image below.
Before proceeding further you need to set properties for these dialogs in
their properties window. You can set these properties at run time if you wish. Setting
them at design time will reduce some lines of code. The necessary changes are
listed below.
For PrintDialog1, set the AllowSelection and AllowSomePages properties to True and
the Document property to PrintDocument1.
For PrintPreviewDialog1, PageSetupDialog1 and PrintPreviewControl1, set the Document
property to PrintDocument1 (for all of them).
Code
Imports System.Drawing.Printing
Public Class Form1 Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
#Region " Windows Form Designer generated code "
#End Region
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As _
System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
RichTextBox1.Text = "Programmers have undergone a major change in many years of _
programming various machines. For example, what could take days to create an _
application in other programming languages like C, C++ could be done in hours with
_
Visual Basic. Visual Basic provides many interesting sets of tools to aid us in _
building exciting applications. Visual Basic provides these tools to make our _
life far more easier because all the real hard code is already written for us."
'filling the richtextbox with some text that can be used readily
End Sub
Private Sub MenuItem2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As _
System.EventArgs) Handles MenuItem2.Click
If PrintDialog1.ShowDialog = DialogResult.OK Then
'showDialog method makes the dialog box visible at run time
PrintDocument1.Print()
End If
End Sub
Private Sub MenuItem3_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As _
System.EventArgs) Handles MenuItem3.Click
Try
PrintPreviewDialog1.ShowDialog()
Catch es As Exception
MessageBox.Show(es.Message)
End Try
End Sub
Private Sub MenuItem4_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As _
System.EventArgs) Handles MenuItem4.Click
With PageSetupDialog1
.PageSettings = PrintDocument1.DefaultPageSettings
End With
Try
If PageSetupDialog1.ShowDialog = DialogResult.OK Then
PrintDocument1.DefaultPageSettings = PageSetupDialog1.PageSettings
End If
Catch es As Exception
MessageBox.Show(es.Message)
End Try
End Sub
Private Sub MenuItem5_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As _
System.EventArgs) Handles MenuItem5.Click
Try
PrintPreviewControl1.Document = PrintDocument1
Catch es As Exception
MessageBox.Show(es.Message)
End Try
End Sub
Private Sub PrintDocument1_PrintPage(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As_
System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventArgs) Handles PrintDocument1.PrintPage
'PrintPage is the foundational printing event. This event gets fired for every
' page that will be printed
Static intCurrentChar As Int32
' declaring a static variable to hold the position of the last printed char
Dim font As New Font("Verdana", 14)
' initializing the font to be used for printing
Dim PrintAreaHeight, PrintAreaWidth, marginLeft, marginTop As Int32
With PrintDocument1.DefaultPageSettings
' initializing local variables that contain the bounds of the printing area rectangle
PrintAreaHeight = .PaperSize.Height - .Margins.Top - .Margins.Bottom
PrintAreaWidth = .PaperSize.Width - .Margins.Left - .Margins.Right
' initializing local variables to hold margin values that will serve
' as the X and Y coordinates for the upper left corner of the printing
' area rectangle.
marginLeft = .Margins.Left
marginTop = .Margins.Top
' X and Y coordinate
End With
If PrintDocument1.DefaultPageSettings.Landscape Then
Dim intTemp As Int32
intTemp = PrintAreaHeight
PrintAreaHeight = PrintAreaWidth
PrintAreaWidth = intTemp
' if the user selects landscape mode, swap the printing area height and width
End If
Dim intLineCount As Int32 = CInt(PrintAreaHeight / font.Height)
' calculating the total number of lines in the document based on the height of
' the printing area and the height of the font
Dim rectPrintingArea As New RectangleF(marginLeft, marginTop, PrintAreaWidth, PrintAreaHeight)
' initializing the rectangle structure that defines the printing area
Dim fmt As New StringFormat(StringFormatFlags.LineLimit)
'instantiating the StringFormat class, which encapsulates text layout information
Dim intLinesFilled, intCharsFitted As Int32
e.Graphics.MeasureString(Mid(RichTextBox1.Text, intCurrentChar + 1), font,_
New SizeF(PrintAreaWidth, PrintAreaHeight), fmt, intCharsFitted, intLinesFilled)
' calling MeasureString to determine the number of characters that will fit in
' the printing area rectangle
e.Graphics.DrawString(Mid(RichTextBox1.Text, intCurrentChar + 1), font,_
Brushes.Black, rectPrintingArea, fmt)
' print the text to the page
intCurrentChar += intCharsFitted
'advancing the current char to the last char printed on this page
< TextBox1.Text.Length Then
If intCurrentChar e.HasMorePages=True
'HasMorePages tells the printing module whether another PrintPage event should be
fired
Else
e.HasMorePages = False
intCurrentChar = 0
End If
End Sub
End Class
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The above code will throw exceptions if you don't have a printer attached to your
machine.
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