Printing in visual basic

[kenguru]

Hi,

I used the printer objectum to print a form in visual basic. Is it possible to print this form first on a virtual way and after viewing that to send to the printer?Like in Word, that first there is a "print preview" and after that we can print the document.
Thank's
Kenguru

 

[jebenson]

Yes. You can print to a PictureBox control just like you print to a printer - same methods, etc. You can probably even use the same code as you used to print the form...just replace "Printer" with the PictureBox name. Actually, there's a way to make the same code print to a Form, PictureBox, Printer or any other object that can accept print output:

Public Sub PrintIt(ByVal PrintTarget as Object)
    PrintTarget.CurrentX = 500
    PrintTarget.CurrentY = 500
    PrintTarget.Print "This is a test."
End Sub

'call Sub like this:

PrintIt Form1.Picture1  'prints to a PictureBox

PrintIt Printer  'prints to the default Printer

If your output spans multiple pages, you can create a control array of picture boxes to do the preview and dynamically load them as needed. If this is something you need, let me know and I'll post some code.

I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[kenguru]

Hi!
Thank's for your answer. I used your test code and the text didn't apeared on the picturebox. What did i make wrong? I used the line form1.show to see the result, but nothing
Thank'a
Kenguru

 

[kenguru]

Hi!
I realized what is the problem: i would like to print the content of a form on a picturebox which isn't on the main form. But the method PictureBox.Print can only print on an active form, because if i wrote
(i am at the moment on the formmain)
form1.picturebox1.print "test"
form1.show
nothing appears
but if i write (i'am on the formmain)
formmain.picturebox1.print "test"
the text appears
Is there a way to resolve this?
Thank's
Kenguru

 

[jebenson]

You can print to a picturebox that is on another form - I do it all the time. To make it work you need to set the target picturebox's AutoRedraw property to True.

I used to rock and roll every night and party every day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find 30 minutes a week in which to get funky. - Homer Simpson

 

[chiph]

Can we move this to the Visual Basic 5 & 6 forum? This one is for database related questions.

Thanks.
Chip H.


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