Printing in VB6

[j2flk1234]

Hi,

Does anyone know how print an entire form in Visual Basic 6? I need to be able to resize the form so it prints on one page.

[jeffbroodwar]

Hi,

Try form1.printform. But before executing this, change the form color to white. So that it will not waste ink... ^^

Regards,
Jeff

[Killer42]

Yes, it really comes down to one of two choices - PrintForm, or "roll your own". Though I do recall from some years back that creating your own equivalent of PrintForm is not that hard. The problem with PrintForm, of course, is that (if I remember correctly) it prints at screen resolution, and loses lots of detail. By running through the controls on the form and printing them yourself, I think you can get around that.

(Or maybe you can buy some sort of printing software that will handle it, but that seems rather a waste.)

[j2flk1234]

Hi,

I tried the PrintForm but it cuts off half of my form. You suggested for me to create my own equivalent to PrintForm, do you have any ideas how to go about that? I tried looking for examples online but couldn't really find anything that would fit my needs.

Yes, it really comes down to one of two choices - PrintForm, or "roll your own". Though I do recall from some years back that creating your own equivalent of PrintForm is not that hard. The problem with PrintForm, of course, is that (if I remember correctly) it prints at screen resolution, and loses lots of detail. By running through the controls on the form and printing them yourself, I think you can get around that.

(Or maybe you can buy some sort of printing software that will handle it, but that seems rather a waste.)

[j2flk1234]

To be more specific about my problem I will paste some sample code that I am using:

Private Sub Command1_Click()
 
   Form1.PrintForm
 
End Sub
 
Private Sub Form_Load()
 
  MSFlexGrid1.Width = 5870
  MSFlexGrid1.Top = 840
  MSFlexGrid1.Left = 4800
  MSFlexGrid1.Height = 11655
 
  MSFlexGrid1.Col = 2
  MSFlexGrid1.Row = 23
  MSFlexGrid1.CellBackColor = &HFFFFC0
  'initial settings when form is loaded
  Label1.FontSize = 23
  Label1.Caption = "Data"
  Label1.FontName = "Times New Roman"
  Label1.BackColor = &H8000000F
  'Label2.Alignment = 0
  Label1.Width = MSFlexGrid1.Width
  Label1.Height = 600
  Label1.Top = MSFlexGrid1.Top - 100 - Label1.Height
  Label1.ForeColor = &HFF&
 
  Label2.Caption = "TEST"
  Label2.FontSize = 20
  Label2.FontName = "Times New Roman"
  Label2.Alignment = 0
  Label2.Width = 4250
  Label2.Height = 450
  Label2.Top = MSFlexGrid1.Top + MSFlexGrid1.Height
  Label2.ForeColor = &HFF&
  Label2.BackColor = &H8000000F
 
  For i = 0 To 23
    MSFlexGrid1.RowHeight(i) = 2 * MSFlexGrid1.RowHeight(i)
  Next i
 
  For i = 0 To 3
    MSFlexGrid1.ColWidth(i) = 1.5 * MSFlexGrid1.ColWidth(i)
  Next i
 
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(0, 1) = "Size range"
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(0, 2) = "m"
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(0, 3) = "a"
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(1, 0) = "d"
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(1, 1) = "k"
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(1, 2) = "s"
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(1, 3) = "t"
  MSFlexGrid1.TextMatrix(23, 1) = "Sum"
 
End Sub
 
Private Sub Form_Resize()
  'make sure everything is centered when form is resized
 
  Label1.Left = (Form1.Width / 2) - (Label1.Width / 2)
  MSFlexGrid1.Left = (Form1.Width / 2) - (MSFlexGrid1.Width / 2)
  Label2.Left = MSFlexGrid1.Left
 
End Sub

I have one MSFlexGrid that has 24 rows and 4 columns and I have 2 labels and one Print button. I want to print it exacly as shown on the screen once the program is run.

Yes, it really comes down to one of two choices - PrintForm, or "roll your own". Though I do recall from some years back that creating your own equivalent of PrintForm is not that hard. The problem with PrintForm, of course, is that (if I remember correctly) it prints at screen resolution, and loses lots of detail. By running through the controls on the form and printing them yourself, I think you can get around that.

(Or maybe you can buy some sort of printing software that will handle it, but that seems rather a waste.)

[Killer42]

I did see a sample to print all the controls on a form, probably more than ten years ago now. At lunch time (maybe 4 hours from now) I'll see whether I can find (or create) something.

[Killer42]

Sorry, nothing yet. Stay tuned...

[Killer42]

I've found a print preview example for VB which provides some helpful info, but not the actual printform equivalent. I know I had one somewhere...

[j2flk1234]

I've found a print preview example for VB which provides some helpful info, but not the actual printform equivalent. I know I had one somewhere...

Have you found anything? I've been looking and can't find too much.

[Killer42]

Have you found anything? I've been looking and can't find too much.

Not yet - sorry. Might have to build one. I was just thinking of a loop through the controls on the form, printing each of them to the printer. The difficulaties, I suppose, would lie in how to reproduce the look of things like textboxes whose text is longer than the box.

Keep looking though, I'm sure there's already something out there - I know I saw it, early in my VB days (probably more than 10 years ago).

[j2flk1234]

Not yet - sorry. Might have to build one. I was just thinking of a loop through the controls on the form, printing each of them to the printer. The difficulaties, I suppose, would lie in how to reproduce the look of things like textboxes whose text is longer than the box.

Keep looking though, I'm sure there's already something out there - I know I saw it, early in my VB days (probably more than 10 years ago).

I decided to try and use the printer object. I have a text box that has a blue background and the text inside is right justified. With the printer object i've only found a way to print the text inside the text box but not the textbox as a whole. Do you have any idea how to do this?

[Killer42]

I decided to try and use the printer object. I have a text box that has a blue background and the text inside is right justified. With the printer object i've only found a way to print the text inside the text box but not the textbox as a whole. Do you have any idea how to do this?

(Sorry, haven't had a chance to get back to this.)

I suppose you might just have to draw a box, with the appropriate border, and set the fill colour to match the background of the textbox. Probably using a generic "print this textbox" routine. One thing I recall is that back when I was playing around with all this print preview stuff, colour printing wasn't something that had to be considered.

By the way, if you search M$'s website for something like "add print preview to basic application" they have complete code there to implement print preview. They have versions for... um, I think VB3 and VB5. The latter should also work in VB6.

This won't directly solve your form printing problem, but it's very useful to have, and if you are going to build a form print solution, the preview capability will make it much quicker (and cheaper!) to test as you go. One thing I have always found about printing is that it takes a lot of trial and error.

[j2flk1234]

(Sorry, haven't had a chance to get back to this.)

I suppose you might just have to draw a box, with the appropriate border, and set the fill colour to match the background of the textbox. Probably using a generic "print this textbox" routine. One thing I recall is that back when I was playing around with all this print preview stuff, colour printing wasn't something that had to be considered.

By the way, if you search M$'s website for something like "add print preview to basic application" they have complete code there to implement print preview. They have versions for... um, I think VB3 and VB5. The latter should also work in VB6.

This won't directly solve your form printing problem, but it's very useful to have, and if you are going to build a form print solution, the preview capability will make it much quicker (and cheaper!) to test as you go. One thing I have always found about printing is that it takes a lot of trial and error.

Yeah i agree with you there, ALOT OF TRIAL AND ERROR. I did happen to find something on this website :

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=161299

It really helps with what I am doing because it can capture the entire client area and fit it to one page when printing. It does come out a little blurry though, do you have any idea why this is? It seems that all the different printing techniques I have tried so far all seem to come out blurry.

[Killer42]

... It does come out a little blurry though, do you have any idea why this is? It seems that all the different printing techniques I have tried so far all seem to come out blurry.

I believe this is a pretty common problem, related to the relatively low resolution of the screen. Even a pretty basic printer these days will probably produce 300 dots per inch. A typical screen, on the other hand, shows something on the order of 72 dpi (possibly higher nowadays). So obviously in capturing the screen, you aren't going to get the same sort of resolution you're used to seeing printed.

That's why "drawing" things on the printer generally produces much better results than dumping an image direct from the screen.