FIX: Printer.TextWidth Returning Inconsistent Results in IDE

ID: Q171815

The information in this article applies to:

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

SYMPTOMS

Using Printer.TextWidth from the IDE works correctly the first time a project is run, but may return incorrect values after that. You must completely close Visual Basic and restart to see correct results again. The TextWidth method works correctly for other objects, and Printer.TextWidth works correctly in an EXE.

CAUSE

Visual Basic closes the Printer Object's Font information incorrectly when switching from run-time to design-time, so, on subsequent runs, the Font information may not be retrieved properly.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This bug has been fixed in Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2.

For more information on the Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q170365 INFO: Visual Studio 97 Service Packs - What, Where, and Why

For a list of the Visual Basic 5.0 bugs that were fixed in the Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q171554 INFO: Visual Basic 5.0 Fixes in Visual Studio 97 Service Pack 2

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Create a new Visual Basic 5.0 Standard EXE Project.

Add a CommandButton to Form1.

Add code to the Click of the CommandButton to set the Printer object's Font information and to report Printer.TextWidth(<text string>) for a string. For example:


      Private Sub Command1_Click()
         Printer.FontName = "Arial"
         Printer.FontSize = 8
         Debug.Print Printer.Font.Name;
         Debug.Print Printer.FontSize;
         Debug.Print Printer.TextWidth("Any text string")

         Printer.FontName = "Arial"
         Printer.FontSize = 12
         Debug.Print Printer.Font.Name;
         Debug.Print Printer.FontSize;
         Debug.Print Printer.TextWidth("Any text string")

         Printer.FontName = "Arial"
         Printer.FontSize = 8
         Debug.Print Printer.Font.Name;
         Debug.Print Printer.FontSize;
         Debug.Print Printer.TextWidth("Any text string")
      End Sub

Run the project and click the button. Observe the Immediate Window. You will see the correct value for the text width of the string.

Return to design view.

Repeat steps 4 and 5 one or more times.

RESULTS: Values will be correct the first time this runs. But reported values will sometimes be incorrect on subsequent runs. When compiled into an EXE, the results are consistently correct.

Results are unaffected by using a StdFont object or by resetting the Printer and Font. For example, adding this before setting the font does not help:


   Printer.Print ""
   Printer.Font = ""
   Printer.ScaleMode = 1

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbVBp500 kbVS97sp2fix kbGrpVB kbvbp500sp2fix
Version : 5.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug