Print entire form including off screen 1

[bbuk]

Hi

I have an application which displays the results from a vehicle diagnostic machine. I use the Innovasys FramePlus control as a container for several shape controls to represent the status of the leds on the machine. To produce the printout I have an invisible form with a standard frame containing labels for the customer information, then 2 x FramePlus controls to show the before and after state of the leds. I then print this form using Form.Print. Everything prints perfectly on my system.

Now to my problem - I have found, like many before me I now realise, that when the form is printed on a system with a lower screen resolution only the part of the form which would be on the screen were it visible is printed.

After much searching I have not found a solution which fits my situation,can anybody here please help me out of this hole which I have dug for myself?

Andy

 

[CaptainD]

Can you get the screen resulution of the computer and compare that to yours and adjust your controls and form accordingly?

 

[strongm]

Have a look at the PrintWindow API call

 

[bbuk]

Thanks for the replies.

CaptainD I think this would work but if I resize the form for the worst case resolution (800x600) the printed output would be too small.

Strongm, thanks for pointing me to the PrintWindow api but but I still have some problems. One is that I can't get it to only capture the client area. As far as I can find the PW_CLIENTONLY constant is 1 but even using 1 for the flag the entire window is captured.

I found that I cant place the captured image directly on the printer object hDC but if I place it on a picturebox I can then print the picturebox image with printer.paintpicture (thanks to hypetia in thread 922-912111). Unfortunately this does not solve the original problem - the part of the picturebox which is off the screen is not printed.

Any further help or suggestions gratefully received...

 

[strongm]

Ah - you just want the client area ... sorry, but there's a bug (as you have discovered) in PrintWindow when using the PW_CLIENTONLY flag

>cant place the captured image directly on the printer object hDC

Should be able to. You may need to select a bitmap into the printer's hDC first though.

 

[TheVampire]

You might try setting your form as a MDIchild. That way it can be bigger than the screen resolution and Printform will print the whole thing.

Robert

 

[bbuk]

Thanks Robert - that does exactly what I need. Is there a downside, something this easy must have a downside!

strongm - Thanks for the suggestion but Roberts answer seems easier for my purpose. For future reference what do you mean by select a bitmap into printers hDC?

Andy

 

[TheVampire]

Your welcome. Glad it helped. I don't know of any downside right off the top of my head.