Article ID: 146022
Article Last Modified on 4/5/2005
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Learning Edition
- Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition
- 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 Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 32-Bit Enterprise Edition
This article was previously published under Q146022
SUMMARY
The SelPrint method of the RichTextBox control does not allow a programmer to set the position of the output on the printer. In addition, the RichTextBox control does not provide a method for displaying its contents as they would show up on the printer. This article explains how to set up a RichTextBox with a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) display and then how to print it.
MORE INFORMATION
The Visual Basic RichTextBox control is a sub-classed control based on the RichTextBox provided by the Win32 operating system. The operating system control supports many messages that are not exposed in Visual Basic. One of these messages is EM_SETTARGETDEVICE. The EM_SETTARGETDEVICE message is used to tell a RichTextBox to base its display on a target device such as a printer. Another message that is not fully exposed by Visual Basic is EM_FORMATRANGE. The EM_FORMATRANGE message sends a page at a time to an output device using the specified coordinates. Using these messages in Visual Basic, it is possible to make a RichTextBox support WYSIWYG display and output.
The following example illustrates how to take advantage of the EM_SETTARGETDEVICE and EM_FORMATRANGE messages from Visual Basic. The example provides two re-usable procedures to send these messages. The first procedure WYSIWYG_RTF() sets a RichTextBox to provide a WYSIWYG display based on the default printer and specified margins. The second procedure PrintRtf() prints the contents of the RichTextBox with the specified margins.
EXAMPLE
- Start a new project in the Visual Basic 32-bit edition. Form1 is created by default.
- Put a CommandButton and a RichTextBox control on Form1.
Add the following code to Form1:
Private Const AnInch As Long = 1440 '1440 twips per inch Private Const QuarterInch As Long = 360 Private Sub Form_Load() Dim PrintableWidth As Long Dim PrintableHeight As Long Dim x As Single ' Initialize Form and Command button Me.Caption = "Rich Text Box WYSIWYG Printing Example" Command1.Move 10, 10, 600, 380 Command1.Caption = "&Print" ' Set the font of the RTF to a TrueType font for best results RichTextBox1.SelFontName = "Arial" RichTextBox1.SelFontSize = 10 'initialize the printer object x = Printer.TwipsPerPixelX Printer.Orientation = vbPRORPortrait 'vbPRORLandscape ' Tell the RTF to base it's display off of the printer Call WYSIWYG_RTF(RichTextBox1, QuarterInch, QuarterInch, QuarterInch, QuarterInch, PrintableWidth, PrintableHeight) '1440 Twips=1 Inch ' Set the form width to match the line width Me.Width = PrintableWidth + 200 Me.Height = PrintableHeight + 800 End Sub Private Sub Form_Resize() ' Position the RTF on form RichTextBox1.Move 100, 500, Me.ScaleWidth - 200, Me.ScaleHeight - 600 End Sub Private Sub Command1_Click() ' Print the contents of the RichTextBox with a one inch margin PrintRTF RichTextBox1, AnInch, AnInch, AnInch, AnInch End Sub- Insert a new standard module into the project, Module1.bas is created by default.
Add the following code to Module1:
Option Explicit Private Type Rect Left As Long Top As Long Right As Long Bottom As Long End Type Private Type CharRange cpMin As Long ' First character of range (0 for start of doc) cpMax As Long ' Last character of range (-1 for end of doc) End Type Private Type FormatRange hdc As Long ' Actual DC to draw on hdcTarget As Long ' Target DC for determining text formatting rc As Rect ' Region of the DC to draw to (in twips) rcPage As Rect ' Region of the entire DC (page size) (in twips) chrg As CharRange ' Range of text to draw (see above declaration) End Type Private Const WM_USER As Long = &H400 Private Const EM_FORMATRANGE As Long = WM_USER + 57 Private Const EM_SETTARGETDEVICE As Long = WM_USER + 72 Private Const PHYSICALOFFSETX As Long = 112 Private Const PHYSICALOFFSETY As Long = 113 Private Declare Function GetDeviceCaps Lib "gdi32" ( _ ByVal hdc As Long, ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "USER32" Alias "SendMessageA" _ (ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal msg As Long, ByVal wp As Long, _ lp As Any) As Long Private Declare Function CreateDC Lib "gdi32" Alias "CreateDCA" _ (ByVal lpDriverName As String, ByVal lpDeviceName As String, _ ByVal lpOutput As Long, ByVal lpInitData As Long) As Long '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ' ' WYSIWYG_RTF - Sets an RTF control to display itself the same as it ' would print on the default printer ' ' RTF - A RichTextBox control to set for WYSIWYG display. ' ' LeftMarginWidth - Width of desired left margin in twips ' ' RightMarginWidth - Width of desired right margin in twips ' ' Returns - The length of a line on the printer in twips ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Public Sub WYSIWYG_RTF(RTF As RichTextBox, LeftMarginWidth As Long, RightMarginWidth As Long, TopMarginWidth As Long, BottomMarginWidth As Long, PrintableWidth As Long, PrintableHeight As Long) Dim LeftOffset As Long Dim LeftMargin As Long Dim RightMargin As Long Dim TopOffset As Long Dim TopMargin As Long Dim BottomMargin As Long Dim PrinterhDC As Long Dim r As Long Printer.ScaleMode = vbTwips ' Get the left offset to the printable area on the page in twips LeftOffset = GetDeviceCaps(Printer.hdc, PHYSICALOFFSETX) LeftOffset = Printer.ScaleX(LeftOffset, vbPixels, vbTwips) ' Calculate the Left, and Right margins LeftMargin = LeftMarginWidth - LeftOffset RightMargin = (Printer.Width - RightMarginWidth) - LeftOffset ' Calculate the line width PrintableWidth = RightMargin - LeftMargin ' Get the top offset to the printable area on the page in twips TopOffset = GetDeviceCaps(Printer.hdc, PHYSICALOFFSETY) TopOffset = Printer.ScaleX(TopOffset, vbPixels, vbTwips) ' Calculate the Left, and Right margins TopMargin = TopMarginWidth - TopOffset BottomMargin = (Printer.Height - BottomMarginWidth) - TopOffset ' Calculate the line width PrintableHeight = BottomMargin - TopMargin ' Create an hDC on the Printer pointed to by the Printer object ' This DC needs to remain for the RTF to keep up the WYSIWYG display PrinterhDC = CreateDC(Printer.DriverName, Printer.DeviceName, 0, 0) ' Tell the RTF to base it's display off of the printer ' at the desired line width r = SendMessage(RTF.hWnd, EM_SETTARGETDEVICE, PrinterhDC, _ ByVal PrintableWidth) End Sub '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ' ' PrintRTF - Prints the contents of a RichTextBox control using the ' provided margins ' ' RTF - A RichTextBox control to print ' ' LeftMarginWidth - Width of desired left margin in twips ' ' TopMarginHeight - Height of desired top margin in twips ' ' RightMarginWidth - Width of desired right margin in twips ' ' BottomMarginHeight - Height of desired bottom margin in twips ' ' Notes - If you are also using WYSIWYG_RTF() on the provided RTF ' parameter you should specify the same LeftMarginWidth and ' RightMarginWidth that you used to call WYSIWYG_RTF() '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Public Sub PrintRTF(RTF As RichTextBox, LeftMarginWidth As Long, _ TopMarginHeight, RightMarginWidth, BottomMarginHeight) Dim LeftOffset As Long, TopOffset As Long Dim LeftMargin As Long, TopMargin As Long Dim RightMargin As Long, BottomMargin As Long Dim fr As FormatRange Dim rcDrawTo As Rect Dim rcPage As Rect Dim TextLength As Long Dim NextCharPosition As Long Dim r As Long ' Start a print job to get a valid Printer.hDC Printer.Print Space(1) Printer.ScaleMode = vbTwips ' Get the offsett to the printable area on the page in twips LeftOffset = Printer.ScaleX(GetDeviceCaps(Printer.hdc, _ PHYSICALOFFSETX), vbPixels, vbTwips) TopOffset = Printer.ScaleY(GetDeviceCaps(Printer.hdc, _ PHYSICALOFFSETY), vbPixels, vbTwips) ' Calculate the Left, Top, Right, and Bottom margins LeftMargin = LeftMarginWidth - LeftOffset TopMargin = TopMarginHeight - TopOffset RightMargin = (Printer.Width - RightMarginWidth) - LeftOffset BottomMargin = (Printer.Height - BottomMarginHeight) - TopOffset ' Set printable area rect rcPage.Left = 0 rcPage.Top = 0 rcPage.Right = Printer.ScaleWidth rcPage.Bottom = Printer.ScaleHeight ' Set rect in which to print (relative to printable area) rcDrawTo.Left = LeftMargin rcDrawTo.Top = TopMargin rcDrawTo.Right = RightMargin rcDrawTo.Bottom = BottomMargin ' Set up the print instructions fr.hdc = Printer.hdc ' Use the same DC for measuring and rendering fr.hdcTarget = Printer.hdc ' Point at printer hDC fr.rc = rcDrawTo ' Indicate the area on page to draw to fr.rcPage = rcPage ' Indicate entire size of page fr.chrg.cpMin = 0 ' Indicate start of text through fr.chrg.cpMax = -1 ' end of the text ' Get length of text in RTF TextLength = Len(RTF.Text) ' Loop printing each page until done Do ' Print the page by sending EM_FORMATRANGE message NextCharPosition = SendMessage(RTF.hWnd, EM_FORMATRANGE, True, fr) If NextCharPosition >= TextLength Then Exit Do 'If done then exit fr.chrg.cpMin = NextCharPosition ' Starting position for next page Printer.NewPage ' Move on to next page Printer.Print Space(1) ' Re-initialize hDC fr.hdc = Printer.hdc fr.hdcTarget = Printer.hdc Loop ' Commit the print job Printer.EndDoc ' Allow the RTF to free up memory r = SendMessage(RTF.hWnd, EM_FORMATRANGE, False, ByVal CLng(0)) End Sub- Save the project.
- Run the project.
- Enter or paste some text into the RichTextBox.
- Press the Print command button. Note that the printed output should word-wrap at the same locations as displayed on the screen. Also, the output should be printed with the specified one-inch margin all around.
Keywords: kbhowto kbprint kbtophit KB146022
