HOWTO: Print the WebBrowser Control

• Microsoft Visual Basic Control Creation, Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0
• Microsoft Visual Basic Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 includes a custom ActiveX control called "WebBrowser."

The WebBrowser control does not include a Print method that can be directly called from Visual Basic. In order to print the contents of the WebBrowser Control, focus must be set to the content portion of the control and a CTRL- P keystroke sequence must be sent to the control.

The difficulty with this is that the WebBrowser window is actually made up of more than one window. The window that needs to have the focus to print is the one with a class name of "HTML_Internet Explorer," and the SetFocus method sets the focus to the "SHELL DocObject View" window. Before sending a CTRL-P keystroke sequence to the WebBrowser control, the proper child window of the control must have the focus.

MORE INFORMATION

To print the control, simply follow the steps below to set focus to the correct window and initiate the SendKeys function:

1. Start a new standard Exe project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add the "Microsoft Internet Controls" (shdocvw.dll) to the project.

3. Place the WebBrowser control on the default form (Form1).

4. Add the following code to load the default page:

         Private Sub Form_Load()
             WebBrowser1.Navigate "http://www.microsoft.com"
         End Sub
   
   

5. Place a CommandButton on the form and change its caption to "Print." Add the following code to the Click event of the button:

         Private Sub Command1_Click()
             Dim hwnd As Long
             WebBrowser1.SetFocus
             hwnd = GetFocus
             SetFocusToBrowser (hwnd)
             SendKeys "^P"   'Control-P to print
         End Sub
   
   

6. Add a module to the project, and then add the following code to it:

         Option Explicit
   

         Declare Function GetWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
             ByVal wCmd As Long) As Long
   
         Declare Function GetWindowLong Lib "user32" _
             Alias "GetWindowLongA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
             ByVal nIndex As Long) As Long
   
         Declare Function SetFocusAPI Lib "user32" _
             Alias "SetFocus" (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
   
         Declare Function GetFocus Lib "user32" () As Long
   
         Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" _
             Alias "SendMessageA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, _
             ByVal wMsg As Long, ByVal wParam As Long, _
             lParam As Long) As Long
   
         'GetWindow constants
         Public Const GW_CHILD = 5
         'GetWindowLong constants
         Public Const GWL_STYLE = (-16)
         Public Const WS_VSCROLL = &H200000
   
         Sub SetFocusToBrowser(hBrowserHwnd As Long)
             Dim lStyle As Long
             Dim lResult As Long
             Dim hwnd As Long
             hwnd = hBrowserHwnd
             While (lResult = 0) And (hwnd <> 0)
                 hwnd = GetWindow(hwnd, GW_CHILD)
                 lStyle = GetWindowLong(hwnd, GWL_STYLE)
                 lResult = lStyle And WS_VSCROLL
             Wend
             SetFocusAPI (hwnd)
         End Sub
   
   

7. Run the project and click the Print button.

REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q162719
   TITLE     : HOWTO: Use the WebBrowser Control from Visual Basic 5.0
   
   ARTICLE-ID: Q155969
   TITLE     : HOWTO: Distribute the WebBrowser Control

Keywords          : vb432 VB4WIN vb5all vb5howto
Version           : WINDOWS:4.0,5.0
Platform          : WINDOWS
Issue type        : kbhowto