PrintPreviewControl
PrintPreviewDialog control display the Print Preview Dialog with
all buttons and settings where users can change their settings before a
document goes to the printer. But there are circumstances when you would need
to just display print preview without any buttons and options and use can only
see the preview. This is where the PrintPreviewControl comes in picture.
PrintPreviewControl control represents the raw part of print
preview of a document that is ready go to the printer. In this article, I will
discuss how to use a PrintPreviewControl control to display print previews of
documents in Windows Forms applications.
Creating a PrintPreviewControl
PrintPreviewControl
is defined in the System.Drawing.Printing namespace. You must import this
namespace before using the PrintPreviewControl class.
We can create a
PrintPreviewControl by dragging the control from Toolbox onto a Form or we can
use the PrintPreviewControl class.
The following code
snippet creates a PrintPreviewControl, sets its properties and adds control to
the Form by calling Controls.Add() method.
C# Code:
private PrintPreviewControl
ppc;
private PrintDocument
docToPrint = new PrintDocument();
private void
CreatePrintPreviewControl()
{
ppc = new PrintPreviewControl();
ppc.Name
= "PrintPreviewControl1";
ppc.Dock
= DockStyle.Fill;
ppc.Location = new Point(88, 80);
ppc.Document = docToPrint;
ppc.Zoom
= 0.25;
ppc.Document.DocumentName = "c:\\";
ppc.UseAntiAlias = true;
// Add PrintPreviewControl to Form
Controls.Add(this.ppc);
}
VB.NET Code:
Private Sub
CreatePrintPreviewControl()
ppc =
New PrintPreviewControl()
ppc.Name = "PrintPreviewControl1"
ppc.Dock = DockStyle.Fill
ppc.Location
= New Point(88,
80)
ppc.Document = docToPrint
ppc.Zoom = 0.25
ppc.Document.DocumentName = "c:\"
ppc.UseAntiAlias = True
AddHandler docToPrint.PrintPage, AddressOf PrintPage
' Add PrintPreviewControl to Form
Controls.Add(ppc)
End Sub
Adding
PrintDocument.PrintPage Event Handler
Remember, a PrintPreviewControl displays preview only and do
not print a document. To print a document, we must implement
PrintDocument.PrintPage event handler. The
following code snippet add PrintDocument.PrintPage event handler and prints
some text using the DrawString method of Graphics object.
C# Code:
// Add PrintDocument PrintPage event
handler
this.docToPrint.PrintPage +=
new System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventHandler(PrintPage);
private void PrintPage(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs
e)
{
string text = "This
text to be printed. ";
e.Graphics.DrawString(text, new Font("Georgia",
35, FontStyle.Bold),
Brushes.Black, 10, 10);
}
VB.NET Code:
AddHandler docToPrint.PrintPage, AddressOf
PrintPage
Private Sub PrintPage(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As PrintPageEventArgs)
Dim text As String = "This text
to be printed. "
e.Graphics.DrawString(text, New Font("Georgia",
35, FontStyle.Bold),
Brushes.Black, 10, 10)
End Sub
The output looks like Figure 1 where the print preview of a
document to be printed is displayed.
Summary
In this article, we discussed discuss how to use a PrintPreviewControl
control to display print preview of documents in Windows Forms applications.
Download the attached project to learn more about this control.
Further
Readings
Here is a list of top printing articles and tutorials you would want
to read to learn more about printing.