2.17 Printer Functions

The Escape function allows an application to access some facilities of a particular device that are not directly available through GDI. When an application calls Escape for a printer device context, the printer functions regulate the flow of printer output from Windows applications, retrieve information about a printer, and alter the settings of a printer.

Following are the eight printer functions in Windows 3.1, which supersede many of the printer escapes:

Function Description

AbortDoc Ends the current print job and erases everything drawn since the last call to the StartDoc function.
EndDoc Ends a print job.
EndPage Informs the printer that the application has finished writing to a page.
QueryAbort Informs the abort procedure for a printing application that a print job should be stopped.
SetAbortProc Sets the application-supplied abort procedure that allows a print job to be canceled during spooling.
SpoolFile Places a file into the spooler queue.
StartDoc Starts a print job.
StartPage Prepares the printer driver to begin accepting data.

For information about printing from Windows applications, see the Microsoft Windows Guide to Programming.