HOWTO: Use a PictureBox to Control Orientation Printing a Form

• Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0

SUMMARY

When using the PrintForm method to print a Form, you have no control over the orientation. This article describes a way to use a PictureBox to print the client area of a Form in either orientation.

MORE INFORMATION

The PrintForm method creates its own Device Context and therefore ignores any Printer object settings. It will just use the default orientation of the current default printer. Because you cannot change how PrintForm behaves, you must print another way. Your could change printer settings with APIs, print the Form, then change them back, but a simpler approach is to print from a PictureBox. The drawback to this method of using PictureBoxes is that you are printing a Bitmap graphic, so the quality is less than the PrintForm methods. The process described here uses two PictureBoxes, each one covering the Form. The second PictureBox is to avoid a shadowing effect caused by a small offset of the redraw on a single PictureBox. This same technique can be used to print any group of controls.

Example of Using a PictureBox to Print a Form in Any Orientation

1. Create a new Standard EXE Project. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add two PictureBoxes to Form1 so that each nearly covers the Form.

   NOTE: Avoid drawing the second PictureBox within the first. Doing so makes the second PictureBox a member of the first. A simple way to avoid the problem is to place the origin point of the second PictureBox to the left of the origin point of the first PictureBox. Once the second box is drawn, you can resize it so that it is the same size as the first PictureBox.

3. Right-mouse click on Picture2 and choose "Send to Back."

4. Place Picture1 on top of Picture2, covering Picture2.

5. Add a CommandButton and some other controls to Picture1, leaving Picture2 empty.

6. Place this code in the Declarations Section of the module of the Form:

         Private Declare Function SendMessage Lib "user32" Alias _
            "SendMessageA" (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long, _
            ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
   
         Private Const WM_PAINT = &HF
         Private Const WM_PRINT = &H317
         Private Const PRF_CLIENT = &H4&    ' Draw the window's client area
         Private Const PRF_CHILDREN = &H10& ' Draw all visible child windows
         Private Const PRF_OWNED = &H20&    ' Draw all owned windows
   
         Private Sub Command1_Click()
          Dim rv As Long
          Picture1.SetFocus  ' So that the button doesn't look pressed
          Picture2.AutoRedraw = True
          rv = SendMessage(Picture1.hwnd, WM_PAINT, Picture2.hDC, 0)
          rv = SendMessage(Picture1.hwnd, WM_PRINT, Picture2.hDC, _
             PRF_CHILDREN + PRF_CLIENT + PRF_OWNED)
          Picture2.Picture = Picture2.Image
          Picture2.AutoRedraw = False
          Printer.Orientation = vbPRORLandscape   ' 2
          Printer.Print ""
          Printer.PaintPicture Picture2.Picture, 0, 0
          Printer.EndDoc
          Command1.SetFocus  ' Return Focus
         End Sub
   
         Private Sub Form_Load()
          Me.Show
          Command1.Caption = "Print Form"
         End Sub
   
   

7. Run the Project and click on the "Print Form" button. Note that when you click on Command1, "Print Form", it will print the PictureBox and the controls it contains in Landscape orientation.

REFERENCES

If you need to print more than just the client area of a Form or if you need to scale the printout, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q161299
   TITLE     : HOWTO: Capture and Print the Screen, a Form, or any Window