Article ID: 230502 - Last Review: July 1, 2004 - Revision: 3.1

How To Print a Form That Is Too Large for the Screen or Page

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SUMMARY

The PrintForm method prints only the portion of the form that is displayed. This article demonstrates how to print a form that is either larger than the screen or is only partially displayed.
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MORE INFORMATION

If you need to print a form that is larger than the screen, or is only partially displayed, then the controls on the form must be placed in a PictureBox. This prints the bitmap that is contained in the PictureBox, instead of a screen capture of the form itself (which is what PrintForm does). Because the PictureBox's bitmap is stored in a device context in memory, you have access to the entire bitmap regardless of what is displayed.

NOTE: For the purposes of this article, the height of the form is set to 11 inches. If another paper size is desired, such as 8.5- X 14- inches, set the sTall variable to an appropriate value, for example, 14. Also note that these assignments are made in twips because this is the default scalemode for forms. If you change the scalemode, you need to change these values to match as well.

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Print a Form That Is Larger Than the Screen

  1. Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
  2. Add two PictureBoxes to Form1.

    Avoid drawing the second PictureBox inside the first, because doing so makes the second PictureBox a member of the first. Instead, place the origin point of the second PictureBox to the left of the origin point of the first PictureBox.
  3. Right-click Picture2 and choose Send to Back.
  4. Add two labels to Picture1, leaving Picture2 empty.
  5. Add the following code to the General Declarations section of Form1:
    Private Const twipFactor = 1440
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 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 Sub Form_Load()
   Dim sWide As Single, sTall As Single
   Dim rv As Long

   Me.ScaleMode = vbTwips   ' default
   sWide = 8.5
   stall = 11   ' or 14, etc.
   Me.Width = twipFactor * sWide
   Me.Height = twipFactor * stall
   With Picture1
      .Top = 0
      .Left = 0
      .Width = twipFactor * sWide
      .Height = twipFactor * stall
   End With
   With Picture2
      .Top = 0
      .Left = 0
      .Width = twipFactor * sWide
      .Height = twipFactor * stall
   End With
   With Label1
      .Caption = "Top"
      .Left = Me.Width / 2
      .Top = 0
   End With
   With Label2
      .Caption = "Bottom"
      .Top = (twipFactor * stall) - .Height * 2
      .Left = Me.Width / 2
   End With
   Me.Visible = True
   DoEvents

   Picture1.SetFocus
   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.Print ""
   Printer.PaintPicture Picture2.Picture, 0, 0
   Printer.EndDoc
End Sub
  6. Run the project.
  7. The Top and Bottom labels should appear in their respective positions regardless of whether the form is completely displayed.
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Print a Form on More Than One Page

If the form you are printing is too large to fit on a page, you can use the same approach as in the preceding example with a minor addition. The PaintPicture method has a number of optional parameters. The clipping region parameters can be used to grab a portion of the bitmap image and print it.

To accomplish this, locate the following code in the previous example: 
Printer.Print ""
Printer.PaintPicture Picture2.Picture, 0, 0
Printer.EndDoc
Replace those three lines of code with the following: 
Printer.Print ""
Printer.PaintPicture Picture2.Picture, 0, 0, , , _
   0, 0, , Picture2.Height / 2
Printer.NewPage
Printer.PaintPicture Picture2.Picture, 0, 0, , , _
   0, Picture2.Height / 2, , Picture2.Height / 2
Printer.EndDoc
For ease of illustration, this example merely divides the form in half. You can adjust the clipping region appropriately for your needs.

NOTE: Visual Basic 6.0 Online Help states that PrintForm prints the entire form, whether the entire form is visible or not. This information is incorrect.
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REFERENCES

For additional information about printing forms, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
178076  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/178076/EN-US/ ) How To Use a PictureBox to Control Orientation Printing a Form
161299  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/161299/EN-US/ ) How To Capture and Print the Screen, a Form, or Any Window
194580  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/194580/EN-US/ ) How To Print a Composite Image From a RichTextBox
146022  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/146022/EN-US/ ) How To Set Up the RichTextBox Control for WYSIWYG Printing
Visual Basic Online Help; search on: "PaintPicture"
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APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 32-Bit Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Learning Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Learning Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Professional Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Enterprise Edition
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Keywords: 
kbhowto kbprint kbcodesnippet KB230502
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