Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6 in 24 Hours

Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6 in 24 Hours

By Greg Perry

Introducing the Printer Object

Visual Basic applications send all printed output to a special Visual Basic object called the Printer object. The Printer object supports several property values and methods with which you determine the look of the printed output.

The Printer keyword specifies the Printer object to which your applications will direct all output. There is no Printer control on the Toolbox window. All access to the Printer object must take place using Visual Basic code.

The commands that your application sends to the Printer object are generic Windows printer commands. The Windows print spooler converts those generic commands to a specific printer's commands. Therefore, you only worry about what you want printed and let the Windows print spooler worry about how the output is produced.

Throughout this book, when you have learned about a new object such as the Command Button control, you have learned about the properties that relate to that object. Before using the Printer object, you should see the properties available for it so that you'll know what you can do with printed output from within Visual Basic. All the Printer object's properties are listed in Table 16.1.

Table 16.1. The Printer object's properties.

Property Description
ColorMode If 1 (or if set to the vbPRCMMonochrome named literal), output prints in monochrome (shades of white and black) even if you use a color printer. If 2 (or if set to the vbPRCMColor named literal), output prints in color.
Copies Specifies the number of copies to print.
CurrentX Holds the horizontal print column from the upper-left corner of the page, measured either in twips or the scale defined by the ScaleMode properties.
CurrentY Holds the vertical print row from the upper-left corner of the page, measured either in twips or the scale defined by ScaleMode properties.
DeviceName The name of the output device, such as a printer driver, to which you want to print.
DrawMode Determines the appearance of graphics that you draw on the printer.
DrawStyle Specifies the style of any graphical lines that your application draws.
DrawWidth Specifies the width of lines drawn, from 1 (the default) to 32,767 pixels.
DriverName The name of the printer driver (don't specify the driver's extension).
Duplex If 1 (or if set to the named literal vbPRDPSimplex), printing will occur on one side of the page. If 2 (or if set to the named literal vbPRDPHorizontal), printing will occur on both sides (if your printer supports double-sided printing) using a horizontal page turn. If 3 (or if set to the named literal vbPRDPVertical), printing will occur on both sides (if your printer supports double-sided printing) using a vertical page turn.
FillColor Specifies the color of printed shapes. Determines the shading density for noncolor printed output.
FillStyle Contains the style pattern of printed shapes.
Font Returns a font that you can use for setting font attributes.
FontBold Contains either True or False to determine whether subsequent printed output will be boldfaced.
FontCount Specifies the current printer's number of installed fonts.
FontItalic Holds either True or False to determine whether subsequent output will be italicized.
FontName Holds the name of the current font being used for output.
Fonts Contains a table of values that act as if they were stored in a control array. Fonts(0) to Fonts(FontCount-1) holds the names of all installed fonts on the target computer.
FontSize Holds the size, in points, of the current font.
FontStrikeThru Holds either True or False to determine whether subsequent output will be printed with a strikethrough line.
FontTransparent Holds either True or False to determine whether subsequent output will be transparent.
FontUnderline Holds either True or False to determine whether subsequent output will be underlined.
ForeColor Specifies the foreground color of printed text and graphics. (The paper determines the background color.)
hDC A Windows device context handle for advanced Windows procedure calls.
Height Holds the height, in twips, of the current printed page.
Orientation If 1 (or if set to the named literal vbPRORPortrait), output prints in portrait mode (printing occurs down the page). If 2 (or if set to the named literal vbPRORLandscape), output prints in landscape mode (printing occurs across the page).
Page Contains the page number currently being printed and updated automatically by Visual Basic.
PaperBin Specifies which paper bin the print job will use. You can search the online help for the PaperBin property for several named literals you can use to specify different kinds of bins.
PaperSize Specifies the size of paper the print job will use. You can search the online help for the PaperSize property for several named literals you can use to specify different sizes of paper.
Port Specifies the printer port, such as LPT1:.
PrintQuality Determines how fine the print quality will appear. If -1 (or set to the vbPRPQDraft named literal), the printing quality is the least, but the print completes quickly. If -2 (or set to the vbPRPQLow named literal), printing occurs in a low-resolution mode. If -3 (or set to the vbPRPQMedium named literal), printing occurs in a medium resolution mode. If -4 (or set to the vbPRPQHigh named literal), printing is the slowest but the highest quality.
ScaleHeight Specifies how many ScaleMode units high each graphic will be upon output.
ScaleLeft Specifies how many ScaleMode units from the left of the page subsequent printed output appears.
ScaleMode Sets the unit of measurement for all subsequent printed output that appears.
ScaleTop Specifies how many ScaleMode units from the top of the page all subsequent printed output appears.
ScaleWidth Specifies how many ScaleMode units wide each graphic will be upon printed output.
TrackDefault If True, the specified printer changes if you change the default printer at the operating system level. If False, the specified printer remains the same during the program's operation even if the system's default printer changes during the program's execution.
TwipsPerPixelX Specifies the number of screen twips that each printer's dot (or pixel) height consumes.
TwipsPerPixelY Specifies the number of screen twips that each printer's dot, or pixel, width consumes.
Width Holds the size of the page width (measured in twips).
Zoom Specifies the percentage at which printed output prints. A negative value scales the output down (smaller), 0 requests no scaling, and a positive value scales the output up (larger).

Table 16.1 contains many printer properties; fortunately, you'll use only a few of the properties for most of your printing needs. The font-related printer properties take care of just about all your printing jobs that are textual in nature.

Note

The graphics-related printer properties and methods aren't covered in this lesson. After you master graphics in the next part of this book, you'll be more prepared to understand the graphics-related Printer object's properties. Most of the Printer object's properties are reserved for controlling extremely advanced graphics output. For typical applications, you'll rarely bother to specify any properties because the default values work well for normal reporting requirements.

Unlike most of Visual Basic's control objects, the Printer object's methods are much more important than its property values. Table 16.2 contains a complete list of the methods supported by Visual Basic's Printer object.

Table 16.2. The Printer object's methods.

Method Description
Circle Draws a circle, an ellipse, or an arc on the printer.
EndDoc Releases the current document, in full, to the print spooler for output.
KillDoc Immediately terminates the output and deletes the current print job from the print spooler.
Line Draws lines and boxes on the page.
NewPage Sends a page break to the printed output so that subsequent output appears on the next page.
PaintPicture Draws a graphic image file on the printer.
Print Prints numeric and text data on the printer.
PSet Draws a graphical point on the printed output.
Scale Determines the scale used for measuring output.
ScaleX Converts the printer's width to ScaleMode's measurement unit.
ScaleY Converts the printer's height to ScaleMode's measurement unit.
TextHeight Determines the full height of text given in the scale set with Scale.
TextWidth Determines the full width of text given in the scale set with Scale.

By far the most widely used Printer object methods are the Print, EndDoc, and NewPage methods. After you master these three methods, you'll rarely need to use any other methods.

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