HOWTO: Print a Range of Pages with the CommonDialog Control

• Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0
• Microsoft Visual Basic Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

The Print Dialog of the Common Dialog control has three print range options that can be selected:

• A selection of text.
• A range of pages.
• All pages.

Q193943 HOWTO: Use GetDeviceCaps to Determine Margins on a Page

MORE INFORMATION

By default the Pages From ... To option is dimmed in the dialog box. To enable this option you must set the Max property. This is so that the range entered by the user can be validated.

In this article a set of three pages is created from the records of the Nwind.mdb database that ships with Visual Basic. Each record is considered to be one line on the page. Since the number of lines depends on the fontsize, the sample sets a specific fontsize and determines how many lines will fit on the page. This is necessary in order to inform the printer when to start a new page.

Step-By-Step Example

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



2. From the Project menu, select Components. Select the Microsoft Common Dialog Control and then click OK.



3. From the Project menu, select References. Select the Microsoft DAO 3.51 Object Library and then click OK.



4. Add a text box, a CommonDialog and two command button controls to Form1.



5. In the Properties dialog box for Text1 set the MultiLine property to True and the ScrollBars property to 3-Both.



6. Add the following code to the General Declarations section of Form1:




Option Explicit

Private Sub Command1_Click()
   Dim myDatabase As Database
   Dim rsMyTable As Recordset
   Dim i As Integer
   Dim j As Integer
   Dim startpage As Integer

' enable the page range selection option
   CommonDialog1.Max = 3

' set the last page to be printed
   CommonDialog1.ToPage = 3

' clear flags before showing printer dialog box
   CommonDialog1.Flags = 0

' show the printer dialog box
   CommonDialog1.ShowPrinter

' Enter the page number from which to start printing
   startpage = CommonDialog1.FromPage

' set the font size. This will give 42 lines per page
   Printer.FontSize = 18

' replace with your path to the nwind.mdb
   Set myDatabase = OpenDatabase("nwind.mdb")

   Set rsMyTable = myDatabase.OpenRecordset("Customers")

   rsMyTable.MoveFirst

   If (CommonDialog1.Flags And cdlPDPageNums) <> 0 Then
      MsgBox " Printing pages " & CommonDialog1.FromPage & " to " & _
             CommonDialog1.ToPage
      Select Case startpage
       Case 1

       Case 2
    ' skip page 1
         For i = 1 To 42
            rsMyTable.MoveNext
         Next

       Case 3
    ' skip 2 pages
         For i = 1 To 84
            rsMyTable.MoveNext
         Next
      End Select

      If startpage <> 0 Then
         For j = startpage To CommonDialog1.ToPage
            For i = 1 To 42
               If rsMyTable.EOF Then Exit For
               Text1.Text = Text1.Text & rsMyTable!CompanyName & vbCrLf
               Printer.Print rsMyTable!CompanyName
               rsMyTable.MoveNext
            Next
            Printer.NewPage
         Next
         Printer.EndDoc
      End If

   ElseIf (CommonDialog1.Flags And cdlPDSelection) <> 0 Then
   
      rsMyTable.MoveLast
      rsMyTable.MoveFirst
      For i = 1 To rsMyTable.RecordCount
         Text1.Text = Text1.Text & rsMyTable!CompanyName & vbCrLf
         rsMyTable.MoveNext
      Next
      MsgBox "Select text to be printed"
   Else
      For i = 1 To rsMyTable.RecordCount
         Text1.Text = Text1.Text & rsMyTable!CompanyName & vbCrLf
         rsMyTable.MoveNext
      Next
      Printer.Print Text1.Text
      Printer.EndDoc
      MsgBox "Printing all pages"
   End If
End Sub

Private Sub Command2_Click()
   Printer.Print Text1.SelText
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
   Command1.Caption = "Select Printing Option"
   Command2.Caption = "Print selected text"
End Sub 

7. Run the project and test the various options.

REFERENCES

For additional information on determining the margins and printable area of a page, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q193943 HOWTO: Use GetDeviceCaps to Determine Margins on a Page

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbCmnDlgPrint kbCtrl kbPrinting kbVBp kbVBp400 kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbGrpVB kbDSupport
Version : WINDOWS:4.0,5.0,6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto