Microsoft KB Archive/230743

= HOWTO: Set Duplex Printing for Word Automation =

Article ID: 230743

Article Last Modified on 1/24/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Enterprise Edition
 * Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition
 * Microsoft Word 2002 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Word 2000 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Word 97 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Office XP Developer Edition
 * Microsoft Office 2000 Developer Edition

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This article was previously published under Q230743



SUMMARY
Microsoft Word for Windows does not provide a method for Automation clients to set the duplex print flag before starting a print job. Although there is a parameter in the PrintOut method that indicates support for duplex printing, the parameter does not provide true duplex printing and may not be available depending on your operating system or installed language. However, developers can work around this limitation on Windows systems by changing the duplex flag for the active printer driver before calling Word's PrintOut function.

This article demonstrates how to use the Windows API to change the duplex setting of the active printer and allow a Word document to be printed in duplex.



MORE INFORMATION
This code uses the DocumentProperties API to change the print settings of the printer driver to enable duplex printing. For this code to work successfully, the end user will need adequate permissions to change the global print settings for the printer. If a user does not have the proper permission to change driver settings, they will get an Access Denied error on the OpenPrinter API call.

For users of Microsoft Windows NT and Microsoft Windows 2000 who need to print to a shared network printer, this can be a problem because the print driver does not reside on the local machine but on the print server. Although it is possible for an administrator to configure the print server to give end users the proper permission to change global settings, it is NOT desirable to do so in most cases. To work around this problem, it is possible to install a local print driver for the network printer, and let each user control the settings for their local systems.

Steps to Add Local Print Driver for Network Printer on Windows NT and Windows 2000
 One the Start menu, select Settings, then select Printers and double-click Add Printer to bring up the Add Printer wizard. When prompted, select printer from "My Computer" and NOT from the network. Although you will connect to a network printer, you want to use a driver on My Computer. Press Next to continue. Click on "Add Port." Select Local Port in the drop-down list box and then click New Port.  Type the location of the printer on the network. For example: \\printserver\printername (using the exact path name to the printer)  Select OK and continue with the rest of the setup.</ol>

Changing the printer properties for the active printer will affect all applications that use that printer, and not just Word. If you plan on changing the setting for a particular print job, make sure you restore the setting when the job is complete.

Steps to Build the Sample
<ol> Open Visual Basic and create a new project. Form1 is created by default.</li>  Add a standard BAS module to the project and add the following code to the module's code window: Option Explicit

Public Type PRINTER_DEFAULTS

pDatatype As Long pDevmode As Long DesiredAccess As Long End Type

Public Type PRINTER_INFO_2 pServerName As Long pPrinterName As Long pShareName As Long pPortName As Long pDriverName As Long pComment As Long pLocation As Long pDevmode As Long      ' Pointer to DEVMODE pSepFile As Long pPrintProcessor As Long pDatatype As Long pParameters As Long pSecurityDescriptor As Long ' Pointer to SECURITY_DESCRIPTOR Attributes As Long

Priority As Long DefaultPriority As Long StartTime As Long UntilTime As Long Status As Long cJobs As Long AveragePPM As Long End Type

Public Type DEVMODE dmDeviceName As String * 32

dmSpecVersion As Integer dmDriverVersion As Integer dmSize As Integer dmDriverExtra As Integer dmFields As Long dmOrientation As Integer dmPaperSize As Integer dmPaperLength As Integer dmPaperWidth As Integer dmScale As Integer dmCopies As Integer dmDefaultSource As Integer dmPrintQuality As Integer dmColor As Integer dmDuplex As Integer dmYResolution As Integer dmTTOption As Integer dmCollate As Integer dmFormName As String * 32 dmUnusedPadding As Integer dmBitsPerPel As Integer dmPelsWidth As Long dmPelsHeight As Long dmDisplayFlags As Long dmDisplayFrequency As Long dmICMMethod As Long dmICMIntent As Long dmMediaType As Long dmDitherType As Long dmReserved1 As Long dmReserved2 As Long End Type

Public Const DM_DUPLEX = &H1000& Public Const DM_IN_BUFFER = 8

Public Const DM_OUT_BUFFER = 2 Public Const PRINTER_ACCESS_ADMINISTER = &H4 Public Const PRINTER_ACCESS_USE = &H8 Public Const STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED = &HF0000 Public Const PRINTER_ALL_ACCESS = (STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED Or _            PRINTER_ACCESS_ADMINISTER Or PRINTER_ACCESS_USE)

Public Declare Function ClosePrinter Lib "winspool.drv" _ (ByVal hPrinter As Long) As Long Public Declare Function DocumentProperties Lib "winspool.drv" _ Alias "DocumentPropertiesA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _    ByVal hPrinter As Long, ByVal pDeviceName As String, _     ByVal pDevModeOutput As Long, ByVal pDevModeInput As Long, _     ByVal fMode As Long) As Long Public Declare Function GetPrinter Lib "winspool.drv" Alias _ "GetPrinterA" (ByVal hPrinter As Long, ByVal Level As Long, _    pPrinter As Byte, ByVal cbBuf As Long, pcbNeeded As Long) As Long Public Declare Function OpenPrinter Lib "winspool.drv" Alias _ "OpenPrinterA" (ByVal pPrinterName As String, phPrinter As Long, _    pDefault As PRINTER_DEFAULTS) As Long Public Declare Function SetPrinter Lib "winspool.drv" Alias _ "SetPrinterA" (ByVal hPrinter As Long, ByVal Level As Long, _    pPrinter As Byte, ByVal Command As Long) As Long

Public Declare Sub CopyMemory Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" _ (pDest As Any, pSource As Any, ByVal cbLength As Long) ' ==================================================================  ' SetPrinterDuplex '  '  Programmatically set the Duplex flag for the specified printer ' driver's default properties. '  '  Returns: True on success, False on error. (An error will also

' display a message box. This is done for informational value ' only. You should modify the code to support better error ' handling in your production application.)   '   '  Parameters:   '    sPrinterName - The name of the printer to be used.   '   '    nDuplexSetting - One of the following standard settings:   '       1 = None   '       2 = Duplex on long edge (book)   '       3 = Duplex on short edge (legal)   '   ' ==================================================================   Public Function SetPrinterDuplex(ByVal sPrinterName As String, _

ByVal nDuplexSetting As Long) As Boolean

Dim hPrinter As Long Dim pd As PRINTER_DEFAULTS Dim pinfo As PRINTER_INFO_2 Dim dm As DEVMODE Dim yDevModeData As Byte Dim yPInfoMemory As Byte Dim nBytesNeeded As Long Dim nRet As Long, nJunk As Long On Error GoTo cleanup If (nDuplexSetting < 1) Or (nDuplexSetting > 3) Then MsgBox "Error: dwDuplexSetting is incorrect." Exit Function End If     pd.DesiredAccess = PRINTER_ALL_ACCESS nRet = OpenPrinter(sPrinterName, hPrinter, pd) If (nRet = 0) Or (hPrinter = 0) Then If Err.LastDllError = 5 Then MsgBox "Access denied -- See the article for more info." Else MsgBox "Cannot open the printer specified " & _ "(make sure the printer name is correct)." End If        Exit Function End If     nRet = DocumentProperties(0, hPrinter, sPrinterName, 0, 0, 0) If (nRet < 0) Then MsgBox "Cannot get the size of the DEVMODE structure." GoTo cleanup End If     ReDim yDevModeData(nRet + 100) As Byte nRet = DocumentProperties(0, hPrinter, sPrinterName, _                 VarPtr(yDevModeData(0)), 0, DM_OUT_BUFFER) If (nRet < 0) Then MsgBox "Cannot get the DEVMODE structure." GoTo cleanup End If     Call CopyMemory(dm, yDevModeData(0), Len(dm)) If Not CBool(dm.dmFields And DM_DUPLEX) Then MsgBox "You cannot modify the duplex flag for this printer " & _ "because it does not support duplex or the driver " & _ "does not support setting it from the Windows API." GoTo cleanup End If     dm.dmDuplex = nDuplexSetting Call CopyMemory(yDevModeData(0), dm, Len(dm)) nRet = DocumentProperties(0, hPrinter, sPrinterName, _       VarPtr(yDevModeData(0)), VarPtr(yDevModeData(0)), _        DM_IN_BUFFER Or DM_OUT_BUFFER)

If (nRet < 0) Then MsgBox "Unable to set duplex setting to this printer." GoTo cleanup End If     Call GetPrinter(hPrinter, 2, 0, 0, nBytesNeeded) If (nBytesNeeded = 0) Then GoTo cleanup ReDim yPInfoMemory(nBytesNeeded + 100) As Byte

nRet = GetPrinter(hPrinter, 2, yPInfoMemory(0), nBytesNeeded, nJunk) If (nRet = 0) Then MsgBox "Unable to get shared printer settings." GoTo cleanup End If     Call CopyMemory(pinfo, yPInfoMemory(0), Len(pinfo)) pinfo.pDevmode = VarPtr(yDevModeData(0)) pinfo.pSecurityDescriptor = 0 Call CopyMemory(yPInfoMemory(0), pinfo, Len(pinfo)) nRet = SetPrinter(hPrinter, 2, yPInfoMemory(0), 0) If (nRet = 0) Then MsgBox "Unable to set shared printer settings." End If     SetPrinterDuplex = CBool(nRet)

cleanup: If (hPrinter <> 0) Then Call ClosePrinter(hPrinter)

End Function

</li> On Form1, add a standard Command Button.</li>  Add the following code to the code window for Form1: Option Explicit Private Sub Command1_Click Dim oWord As Object Dim oDoc As Object Set oWord = CreateObject("Word.application")

oWord.Visible = True Set oDoc = oWord.Documents.Add oDoc.Range.Select

oWord.Selection.TypeText "This is on page 1" & vbCr oWord.Selection.InsertBreak 1 oWord.Selection.TypeText "This is page 2" SetPrinterDuplex Printer.DeviceName, 2 oDoc.PrintOut Background:=False SetPrinterDuplex Printer.DeviceName, 1 MsgBox "Print Done", vbMsgBoxSetForeground oDoc.Saved = True oDoc.Close Set oDoc = Nothing oWord.Quit Set oWord = Nothing End Sub

</li> Run the sample. If you have a printer that supports duplex printing, the test document should print on both sides of the page.</li></ol>

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