How to: Printer Driver - Visual Basic .NET

Support

Hello:
I would like to create my own printer driver so that it is available in all
applications through the file ->Print menu of applications.
The driver will essentially take the contents of what is in the parent
application and save it so file (like a file - save as).
I will do some information processing when the printer driver is called so I
will need it to open a form (like other drivers do).
I am reading about pdd files and I see a *ResourceDLL: "lmpclres.d ll" entry.

Question 1): is that the dll where my form would reside ?
Question 2): How then would you acquire, pull the data from the parent
application (could be an image or a text file) - once pulled, it would be
trivial to create a file and save the data there...
Thanks
Terry

Nov 21 '05 #1

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7501

Armin Zingler

"Support" <Re************ ****@mail.oci.s tate.ga.us> schrieb

Hello:
I would like to create my own printer driver so that it is available
in all applications through the file ->Print menu of applications.
The driver will essentially take the contents of what is in the
parent application and save it so file (like a file - save as).
I will do some information processing when the printer driver is
called so I will need it to open a form (like other drivers do).
I am reading about pdd files and I see a *ResourceDLL:
"lmpclres.d ll" entry.

Question 1): is that the dll where my form would reside ?
Question 2): How then would you acquire, pull the data from the
parent application (could be an image or a text file) - once pulled,
it would be trivial to create a file and save the data there...
Thanks
Terry

A real driver? I think you chose the wrong environment to do this. Here's a
starting point for driver development:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...fe6e40.xml.asp

Good luck! :-)

Armin

Nov 21 '05 #2

C-Services Holland b.v.

Support wrote:

Hello:
I would like to create my own printer driver so that it is available in all
applications through the file ->Print menu of applications.
The driver will essentially take the contents of what is in the parent
application and save it so file (like a file - save as).
I will do some information processing when the printer driver is called so I
will need it to open a form (like other drivers do).
I am reading about pdd files and I see a *ResourceDLL: "lmpclres.d ll" entry.

Question 1): is that the dll where my form would reside ?
Question 2): How then would you acquire, pull the data from the parent
application (could be an image or a text file) - once pulled, it would be
trivial to create a file and save the data there...
Thanks
Terry

A printer driver doesn't pull anything from the application. It just
gets handed the info it needs to print. And then specifically what to
print, where on the page in what font and colour.

Did you expect to pull data from an application like MS Access and
expect to pull records from the opened database and write the contents
to a database?

--
Rinze van Huizen
C-Services Holland b.v.

Nov 21 '05 #3

Support

Thanks for your information ....
The big picture is that I am designing a document management application...
so I am looking for a ubiquitous interface.
The Adobe - printer interface model seemed very powerfull.
So we want to deploy a "virtual" printer that when clicked would:
1) save the file to a location
2) prompt the user for some information
I have no experience wrting printer drivers. Just started vb.net a couple
of years ago and am learning about printer drivers.
The fact that it get's handed the info is good - now I need to learn
1) what format is the info coming in (doc, xl, txt, tiff, etc...)
and save to file accordingly.
That's the plan
Thanks for any insight
Terry
Big picture is that i am designing a document management application - so I
am looking for
"C-Services Holland b.v." <cs*@REMOVEcsh4 u.nl> wrote in message
news:-v************** ******@zeelandn et.nl...

Support wrote:
Hello:
I would like to create my own printer driver so that it is available in
all applications through the file ->Print menu of applications.
The driver will essentially take the contents of what is in the parent
application and save it so file (like a file - save as).
I will do some information processing when the printer driver is called
so I will need it to open a form (like other drivers do).
I am reading about pdd files and I see a *ResourceDLL: "lmpclres.d ll"
entry.

Question 1): is that the dll where my form would reside ?
Question 2): How then would you acquire, pull the data from the parent
application (could be an image or a text file) - once pulled, it would be
trivial to create a file and save the data there...
Thanks
Terry

A printer driver doesn't pull anything from the application. It just gets
handed the info it needs to print. And then specifically what to print,
where on the page in what font and colour.

Did you expect to pull data from an application like MS Access and expect
to pull records from the opened database and write the contents to a
database?

--
Rinze van Huizen
C-Services Holland b.v.

Nov 21 '05 #4

C-Services Holland b.v.

Support wrote:

Thanks for your information ....
The big picture is that I am designing a document management application...
so I am looking for a ubiquitous interface.
The Adobe - printer interface model seemed very powerfull.
So we want to deploy a "virtual" printer that when clicked would:
1) save the file to a location
2) prompt the user for some information
I have no experience wrting printer drivers. Just started vb.net a couple
of years ago and am learning about printer drivers.
The fact that it get's handed the info is good - now I need to learn
1) what format is the info coming in (doc, xl, txt, tiff, etc...)
and save to file accordingly.
That's the plan
Thanks for any insight
Terry

I don't have experience with writing printer drivers myself, so that
ends it for me. But to me it sounds like you just need a PDF printer
driver. PDF995 for instance behaves like a printer, but it will ask you
where to store the file.

One of my coworkers was checking out an open source PDF printer on
sourceforge.net but I can't remember the name of it. Maybe you could
search there and modify it to suit your needs.
--
Rinze van Huizen
C-Services Holland b.v.

Nov 21 '05 #5

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