BUG: Printer Object Font Information is Lost After Printing

• Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic, 16-bit and 32-bit, version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

The printer object loses all of its font information, including font size, boldness, underlining, etc., after an initial call to Printer.Print has been made.

CAUSE

This problem occurs because of the way the Windows 95 and NT printer drivers work. They require applications to re-send printer settings for each page. Visual Basic 4.0 does not automatically do this.

This behavior is described in the article mentioned in the REFERENCES section below.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, add the following statements to the beginning of the Command1_Click procedure, as shown in the following example:

   Sub Command1_click()
     Dim PrinterFont As String   '*
     Printer.Print ""            '* Initialize printer object's device
                                 '* context
     PrinterFont = Printer.Font  '* Retrieve current font name
     Printer.Font = ""           '* Clear current font details
     Printer.Font = PrinterFont  '* Reset font information
     Printer.fontsize = 36
     Printer.fontbold = true
     Printer.fontitalic = true
     Printer.fontunderline = true
     Printer.print "This is a test"
     Printer.enddoc
   End Sub

Starting a new page will also reset the Printer's font information to its defaults, so you will need to reset the printer after each NewPage method. Page level Information, such as orientation, will not need to be reset.

  ' If you have additional pages, use this syntax:

  Printer.NewPage
  Printer.Print ""     '* Reinitialize printer object's device
  Printer.Font = ""    '* Clear current font details
  Printer.Font = PrinterFont '* Reset font information
  Printer.FontSize = 36
  Printer.CurrentY = 0    '* Reset to the top of the new page
  Printer.Print "This is page two"
  Printer.EndDoc

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Problem

1. Start Visual Basic with a New Project.

2. Add a CommandButton to the form.

3. Add the following code to the Click event of the CommandButton:

         Sub Command1_click()
            Printer.Fontsize = 36
            Printer.Fontbold = true
            Printer.Fontitalic = true
            Printer.Fontunderline = true
            Printer.Frint "This is a test"
            Printer.Fnddoc
         End Sub
   
   

4. Run this program and press the CommandButton. The output should have printed correctly.

5. Press the CommandButton again. This time the output will have lost all of its font attributes.

REFERENCES

For more information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: