HOWTO: Print the Contents of the MS Chart Control

• Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0

SUMMARY

The MSChart control does not expose a method that enables you to print the chart directly. However, you can use the PrintForm method to print the entire form containing the MSChart control. This article describes a method for printing only the chart.

MORE INFORMATION

You can print the chart of an MSChart control by copying the contents of the control using the EditCopy method, pasting the chart to a PictureBox control, and then printing the picture via the PaintPicture method of the Printer object:

1. Start a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default.



2. Click Components on the Project menu. Check "Microsoft Chart Control" and click OK.



3. Draw an MSChart control and a CommandButton on Form1.



4. Click Add Form on the Project menu, select Form and click Open. This will add a form named Form2 to the project.



5. Draw a PictureBox control on Form2.



6. Add the following code to the Click event of Command1 on Form1:

   
         MSChart1.EditCopy
         Printer.Print " "
         Printer.PaintPicture Clipboard.GetData(), 0, 0
         Printer.EndDoc
    




7. Run the application. Click the CommandButton to print the chart to your default printer.
   
   NOTE: The EditCopy method copies both the data and the picture of the chart to the clipboard. Then, when you use a Paste command to retrieve the contents of the clipboard, the receiving application determines whether the picture or the data is pasted. In this example, Picture1 requests the clipboard data and receives a picture of the chart rather than the chart's data.

Additional query words: kbVBp500 KBComp KBCtrl KBPrinting kbVBp

Keywords : kbCtrl kbPrinting kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbGrpVB
Version : 5.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto