Windows Forms Printer Selection List

Introduction

In this example we will create a sample windows form containing a combo box, which will list the printers, installed on the machine on which the program runs. The default printer for the machine is set as the default selection in the combo box. This sample code can be used as a part of other applications in areas where it is required to detect the default printer or select a printer from the list of installed printers.

Key Classes

We will use the PrinterSettings class to populate out combo-box. To find the default printer on the machine, we will use the PrintDocument class.

The InstalledPrinters property of the PrinterSettings class returns the names of all the printers installed on the computer.

A new instance of the PrintDocument class has the PrinterSettings property which points to the printer set up as the default printer. We can retrieve the name of the default printer using the PrinterName property of that PrinterSettings object.

Details

We will start by creating our windows form and adding a label and a combo box control to it. If you are using Visual Studio.Net, you can create a new Visual VB Windows Application and use the default form created in the application. Drag and drop a label and a combobox on the form from the Toolbox.

We will populate the combo box in the Load event of the form.

First we will retrieve the name of the default printer.

Dim prtdoc As New PrintDocument
Dim strDefaultPrinter As String = prtdoc.PrinterSettings.PrinterName

Imports System
Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports System.Drawing.Printing
Public Class Form1
Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form
Private comboBox1 As System.Windows.Forms.ComboBox
Private label1 As System.Windows.Forms.Label
Public Sub New()
comboBox1 = New ComboBox()
label1 = New Label()
label1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(20, 10)
label1.Name = "label1"
label1.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(75, 20)
label1.Text = "Select Printer"
comboBox1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(100, 10)
comboBox1.Name = "comboBox1"
comboBox1.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(150, 20)
AutoScaleBaseSize = New System.Drawing.Size(5, 13)
ClientSize = New System.Drawing.Size(300, 100)
Text = "Printers Sample"
Controls.AddRange(New System.Windows.Forms.Control() {Me.label1, Me.comboBox1})
Me.Load += New System.EventHandler(Me.Form1_Load)
End Sub 'New
Shared Sub Main()
Application.Run(New Form1())
End Sub 'Main
Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs)
Dim prtdoc As New PrintDocument()
Dim strDefaultPrinter As String = prtdoc.PrinterSettings.PrinterName
Dim strPrinter As [String]
For Each strPrinter In PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters
comboBox1.Items.Add(strPrinter)
If strPrinter = strDefaultPrinter Then
comboBox1.SelectedIndex = comboBox1.Items.IndexOf(strPrinter)
End If
Next strPrinter
End Sub 'Form1_Load
End Class 'Form1

Code Listing: defprinter.vb

Program in Action:



Figure: Sample application in action. Note that the default printer is selected by default.

You can further extend this sample to create a user control, which will provide the printer selection as a property and re-use the control in multiple windows forms.

An application of this sample would be to provide a selection for the printer to be used for printing form within the application. We learnt the usage of some of the Framework classes to obtain printer information.

NOTE:

This article is for purely educational purposes. This article is entirely original, unless specified. Any resemblance to other material is an un-intentional coincidence and should not be misconstrued as malicious, slanderous, or any anything else hereof.