ID Number: Q80409
1.00
WINDOWS
Summary:
The methods to print a form provided by Visual Basic print only the
client area, not the non-client area of a form. This is a design
feature of Visual Basic. The client area of a form includes the form's
controls and picture. The non-client area includes the form's borders
and menus, which cannot be printed directly from Visual Basic.
To print both the client and non-client areas of a form, copy an image
of the form into the Clipboard, paste it into a graphics editor such
as Paintbrush, and print. Two methods for this procedure are provided
below.
This information applies to Microsoft Visual Basic programming system
version 1.0 for Windows.
More Information:
The Print option from the File menu, and the Visual Basic statement
[form.]PrintForm only print the client area of a form. The client area
includes the form's picture and controls. Both methods of printing do
not print the non-client area, which includes the form's title bar,
Minimize and Maximize buttons, borders and menus. To print both the
client and non-client areas, you must print the form from an
application outside of Visual Basic. If you want to print a form that
either
- Has submenu items, but you do not wish to print the submenus
-or-
- Has menus without submenus
-or-
- Does not have menus
then use Method 1 below to print the form.
If you want to print a form that contains submenus in their
pulled-down state, use Method 2 below.
Method 1
--------
To print a form without pulled-down submenus, do the following:
1. From the Visual Basic editing environment, create the form you want
to print. Include all controls, titles, menus, pictures, borders,
and so on that you want to print, and size them appropriately.
2. Set focus to the form you want to print.
3. Press ALT+PRINT SCREEN. This key combination is an operation in
Windows that copies the active window (your form in this case) to
the Windows Clipboard.
4. From the Windows Program Manager, launch Paintbrush (or the
graphics editor of your choice) and maximize it.
5. From the Paintbrush Edit menu, choose Paste. The image of your form
should appear in Paintbrush. If the form is too large for
Paintbrush, try either a larger screen resolution (such as
800-by-600 or 1024-by-768), another editor with a larger work
screen, or slightly decrease the size of your form for the printing
process.
6. Once the form is correctly pasted into Paintbrush, from the File
menu, choose Print to print it.
Method 2
--------
To print a form with pulled-down submenus, do the following:
1. In the Visual Basic editing environment, create the form you want
to print. Include all controls, titles, menus, pictures, borders,
and so on that you want to print and size them appropriately.
2. Set focus to the form to be printed.
3. Move the form to the upper left corner of the screen. When the
Clipboard pastes its image into Paintbrush, it starts at the upper
left corner. If the image is too large for the Paintbrush edit
screen, the image is truncated on the right and bottom edges.
Placing the form in the upper left corner helps to ensure that the
full form fits into Paintbrush.
4. Choose the menu option you want to be pulled down when the form is
printed. The menu option should appear pulled down on the screen.
Only one menu option can be pulled down at a time, but submenu
options can be selected.
5. Press SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN. This keystroke is an option in Windows
that copies an image of the entire screen into the Windows
Clipboard. When the pull-down menus are open, Visual Basic traps
the ALT key and closes the menus, thus making the ALT+PRINT SCREEN
keystroke in Method 1 ineffective when printing pull-down menus on
a form.
6. From Program Manager, launch Paintbrush (or the graphics editor of
your choice) and maximize it.
7. From the Paintbrush Edit menu, choose Paste. Your form should
appear in Paintbrush. If the form is too large for Paintbrush, try
either a larger screen resolution (for example, 800-by-600 or
1024-by-768), another editor with a larger work screen, or
slightly decrease the size of your form for the printing process.
8. Using one of the cutting tools at the top of the Paintbrush
toolbox, outline your form.
9. From the Edit menu, choose Copy. This places the graphics area
contained in the cutting region into the Clipboard.
10. From the File menu, choose New to bring up a new editor screen. A
dialog box will appear to ask if you want to save the current
image. You will need to select Yes or No before a new editor
screen will appear.
11. Once the editor screen is empty, from the Edit menu, choose Paste
to paste your form into the editor.
12. From the File menu, choose Print to print the image.
Additional reference words: 1.00