Why am I printing blank pages in RichTextBox when I use the MS co

[Guest]

Hi, I use the code I found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812425/
I follow all instruction there except I dind't create a new project, instead
I just use the customised richtextbox in my own project. Also, my form that
uses the new customized contorol is not named as form 1.
Can any one tell me what I could possible be missing that causes the preview
and the print out to be just a blank page? ( There are plenty text display
on the screen of course)?
I noticed that I added about 4 different print related controls but the
PrintDocument control's property is not modified in any way while all the
other 3 depends on it as the "Document" property. Could this be the problem?
Thank you.

 

[Guest]

I'm using vs2005, .net2 for a C# Windows application.

 

[Peter Duniho]

Hi, I use the code I found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812425/
I follow all instruction there except I dind't create a new project,
instead
I just use the customised richtextbox in my own project. Also, my form
that
uses the new customized contorol is not named as form 1.
Can any one tell me what I could possible be missing that causes the
preview
and the print out to be just a blank page?

You haven't provided enough information for anyone to comment accurately
on your question. For one, you didn't post _any_ code, never mind a
concise-but-complete sample of code that reliably reproduces the problem.

However, I will suggest that it's not clear from your question that you
are actually having trouble with the RichTextBox aspect of the issue
versus the printing issue. So, the first step is to make sure that your
printing code works generally, _without_ the RichTextBox. Put in some
dummy code that just draws something really simple, like a filled box or
circle or some plain text or something. Make sure you don't get blank
pages when you are doing that, then move on to getting the RichTextBox to
work.

Pete

 

[Guest]

Hi Peter, You're right. The rtb is working. I found that I lost a couple of
the print event handler statement in the form's InitComponents.
I now have a new problem though. The text are displayed just fine in the
rtb but when I do a printpreview or the actual print, each line of text is
only 5 characters. Is it some property that I'm not setting correctly?
Thank you.

 

[Peter Duniho]

[...]
I now have a new problem though. The text are displayed just fine in the
rtb but when I do a printpreview or the actual print, each line of text
is
only 5 characters. Is it some property that I'm not setting correctly?

I don't know. Again, you didn't post any code that would illustrate what
you're doing.

Is the text clipped or wrapped? The answer to that should lead you to
looking more at the printing code (clipped) or the RTB WM_FORMATRANGE
usage (wrapped). No guarantees, but that's the way I'd lean. For sure,
the first thing you need to do is step line-by-line through all of the
code involved, to make sure that all the calculations and results come out
as you'd expect.

Pete

 

[Guest]

The text is wrapped to a new line, every 5 characters, and prints to a new
page every 4 lines in both the printpreview and the actual print. I tried
walking through the PrintPreview event but it doesn't go any where.
Below is code for the customized RichTextBox and the event handler code in
my application. Can you see where is causing this behavior? Thank you.

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Drawing.Printing;

namespace RichTextBoxPrintCtrl
{
public class RichTextBoxPrintCtrl : RichTextBox
{
//Convert the unit used by the .NET framework (1/100 inch)
//and the unit used by Win32 API calls (twips 1/1440 inch)
//private const double anInch = 14.4;
private const double anInch = 1;

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct RECT
{
public int Left;
public int Top;
public int Right;
public int Bottom;
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct CHARRANGE
{
public int cpMin; //First character of range (0 for
start of doc)
public int cpMax; //Last character of range (-1 for
end of doc)
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct FORMATRANGE
{
public IntPtr hdc; //Actual DC to draw on
public IntPtr hdcTarget; //Target DC for determining text
formatting
public RECT rc; //Region of the DC to draw to (in
twips)
public RECT rcPage; //Region of the whole DC (page
size) (in twips)
public CHARRANGE chrg; //Range of text to draw (see
earlier declaration)
}

private const int WM_USER = 0x0400;
private const int EM_FORMATRANGE = WM_USER + 57;

[DllImport("USER32.dll")]
private static extern IntPtr SendMessage(IntPtr hWnd, int msg,
IntPtr wp, IntPtr lp);

// Render the contents of the RichTextBox for printing
// Return the last character printed + 1 (printing start from this
point for next page)
public int Print(int charFrom, int charTo, PrintPageEventArgs e)
{
//Calculate the area to render and print
RECT rectToPrint;
rectToPrint.Top = (int)(e.MarginBounds.Top * anInch);
rectToPrint.Bottom = (int)(e.MarginBounds.Bottom * anInch);
rectToPrint.Left = (int)(e.MarginBounds.Left * anInch);
rectToPrint.Right = (int)(e.MarginBounds.Right * anInch);

//Calculate the size of the page
RECT rectPage;
rectPage.Top = (int)(e.PageBounds.Top * anInch);
rectPage.Bottom = (int)(e.PageBounds.Bottom * anInch);
rectPage.Left = (int)(e.PageBounds.Left * anInch);
rectPage.Right = (int)(e.PageBounds.Right * anInch);

IntPtr hdc = e.Graphics.GetHdc();

FORMATRANGE fmtRange;
fmtRange.chrg.cpMax = charTo; //Indicate character from to
character to
fmtRange.chrg.cpMin = charFrom;
fmtRange.hdc = hdc; //Use the same DC for
measuring and rendering
fmtRange.hdcTarget = hdc; //Point at printer hDC
fmtRange.rc = rectToPrint; //Indicate the area on
page to print
fmtRange.rcPage = rectPage; //Indicate size of page

IntPtr res = IntPtr.Zero;

IntPtr wparam = IntPtr.Zero;
wparam = new IntPtr(1);

//Get the pointer to the FORMATRANGE structure in memory
IntPtr lparam = IntPtr.Zero;
lparam = Marshal.AllocCoTaskMem(Marshal.SizeOf(fmtRange));
Marshal.StructureToPtr(fmtRange, lparam, false);

//Send the rendered data for printing
res = SendMessage(Handle, EM_FORMATRANGE, wparam, lparam);

//Free the block of memory allocated
Marshal.FreeCoTaskMem(lparam);

//Release the device context handle obtained by a previous call
e.Graphics.ReleaseHdc(hdc);

//Return last + 1 character printer
return res.ToInt32();
}

}
}


private void tsPageSetup_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
pageSetupDialog1.ShowDialog();

}

private void tsPagePreview_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
printPreviewDialog1.ShowDialog();
}

private void tsPrint_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (printDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
printDocument1.Print();
}

private void printDocument1_BeginPrint(object sender,
System.Drawing.Printing.PrintEventArgs e)
{
checkPrint = 0;
}

private void printDocument1_PrintPage(object sender,
System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventArgs e)
{
// Print the content of RichTextBox. Store the last character
printed.
checkPrint = richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.Print(checkPrint,
richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.TextLength, e);

// Check for more pages
if (checkPrint < richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.TextLength)
e.HasMorePages = true;
else
e.HasMorePages = false;
}


namespace PAImport
{
partial class frmGroupMembershipLog
{
/// <summary>
/// Required designer variable.
/// </summary>
private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

/// <summary>
/// Clean up any resources being used.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be
disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing && (components != null))
{
components.Dispose();
}
base.Dispose(disposing);
}

#region Windows Form Designer generated code

/// <summary>
/// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
/// the contents of this method with the code editor.
/// </summary>
private void InitializeComponent()
{
System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager resources = new
System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager(typeof(frmGroupMembershipLog));
this.msMembership = new System.Windows.Forms.MenuStrip();
this.fileToolStripMenuItem = new
System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
this.tsPageSetup = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
this.tsPagePreview = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
this.tsPrint = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
this.tsSaveAs = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
this.helpToolStripMenuItem = new
System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
this.btnPrevious = new System.Windows.Forms.Button();
this.statusStrip1 = new System.Windows.Forms.StatusStrip();
this.btnFinish = new System.Windows.Forms.Button();
this.txtMembership = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox();
this.btnApply = new System.Windows.Forms.Button();
this.printDialog1 = new System.Windows.Forms.PrintDialog();
this.printDocument1 = new System.Drawing.Printing.PrintDocument();
this.pageSetupDialog1 = new
System.Windows.Forms.PageSetupDialog();
this.printPreviewDialog1 = new
System.Windows.Forms.PrintPreviewDialog();
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1 = new
RichTextBoxPrintCtrl.RichTextBoxPrintCtrl();
this.msMembership.SuspendLayout();
this.SuspendLayout();
//
// msMembership
//
this.msMembership.Items.AddRange(new
System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem[] {
this.fileToolStripMenuItem,
this.helpToolStripMenuItem});
this.msMembership.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 0);
this.msMembership.Name = "msMembership";
this.msMembership.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(972, 24);
this.msMembership.TabIndex = 0;
this.msMembership.Text = "menuStrip1";
//
// fileToolStripMenuItem
//
this.fileToolStripMenuItem.DropDownItems.AddRange(new
System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem[] {
this.tsPageSetup,
this.tsPagePreview,
this.tsPrint,
this.tsSaveAs});
this.fileToolStripMenuItem.Name = "fileToolStripMenuItem";
this.fileToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(35, 20);
this.fileToolStripMenuItem.Text = "&File";
//
// tsPageSetup
//
this.tsPageSetup.Name = "tsPageSetup";
this.tsPageSetup.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(150, 22);
this.tsPageSetup.Text = "P&age Setup";
this.tsPageSetup.Click += new
System.EventHandler(this.tsPageSetup_Click);
//
// tsPagePreview
//
this.tsPagePreview.Name = "tsPagePreview";
this.tsPagePreview.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(150, 22);
this.tsPagePreview.Text = "Page Pre&view";
this.tsPagePreview.Click += new
System.EventHandler(this.tsPagePreview_Click);
//
// tsPrint
//
this.tsPrint.Name = "tsPrint";
this.tsPrint.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(150, 22);
this.tsPrint.Text = "&Print";
this.tsPrint.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.tsPrint_Click);
//
// tsSaveAs
//
this.tsSaveAs.Name = "tsSaveAs";
this.tsSaveAs.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(150, 22);
this.tsSaveAs.Text = "&Save As...";
this.tsSaveAs.Click += new
System.EventHandler(this.tsSaveAs_Click);
//
// helpToolStripMenuItem
//
this.helpToolStripMenuItem.Name = "helpToolStripMenuItem";
this.helpToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(40, 20);
this.helpToolStripMenuItem.Text = "&Help";
//
// btnPrevious
//
this.btnPrevious.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(812, 546);
this.btnPrevious.Name = "btnPrevious";
this.btnPrevious.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(75, 27);
this.btnPrevious.TabIndex = 14;
this.btnPrevious.Text = "&Previous";
this.btnPrevious.UseVisualStyleBackColor = true;
//
// statusStrip1
//
this.statusStrip1.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, 578);
this.statusStrip1.Name = "statusStrip1";
this.statusStrip1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(972, 22);
this.statusStrip1.TabIndex = 15;
this.statusStrip1.Text = "statusStrip1";
//
// btnFinish
//
this.btnFinish.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(896, 546);
this.btnFinish.Name = "btnFinish";
this.btnFinish.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(75, 27);
this.btnFinish.TabIndex = 16;
this.btnFinish.Text = "&Finish";
this.btnFinish.UseVisualStyleBackColor = true;
this.btnFinish.Click += new
System.EventHandler(this.button1_Click);
//
// txtMembership
//
this.txtMembership.BackColor =
System.Drawing.SystemColors.Control;
this.txtMembership.BorderStyle =
System.Windows.Forms.BorderStyle.None;
this.txtMembership.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(7, 42);
this.txtMembership.Multiline = true;
this.txtMembership.Name = "txtMembership";
this.txtMembership.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(707, 42);
this.txtMembership.TabIndex = 17;
this.txtMembership.TabStop = false;
this.txtMembership.Text = "Acive Directory Membership should ";
//
// btnApply
//
this.btnApply.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(728, 42);
this.btnApply.Name = "btnApply";
this.btnApply.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(75, 27);
this.btnApply.TabIndex = 18;
this.btnApply.Text = "Apply";
this.btnApply.UseVisualStyleBackColor = true;
this.btnApply.Click += new
System.EventHandler(this.btnApply_Click);
//
// printDialog1
//
this.printDialog1.AllowPrintToFile = false;
this.printDialog1.Document = this.printDocument1;
this.printDialog1.UseEXDialog = true;
//
// printDocument1
//
this.printDocument1.DocumentName = "Membership Log";
this.printDocument1.PrintPage += new
System.Drawing.Printing.PrintPageEventHandler(this.printDocument1_PrintPage);
this.printDocument1.BeginPrint += new
System.Drawing.Printing.PrintEventHandler(this.printDocument1_BeginPrint);
//
// pageSetupDialog1
//
this.pageSetupDialog1.Document = this.printDocument1;
this.pageSetupDialog1.MinMargins = new
System.Drawing.Printing.Margins(3, 3, 3, 3);
//
// printPreviewDialog1
//
this.printPreviewDialog1.AutoScrollMargin = new
System.Drawing.Size(0, 0);
this.printPreviewDialog1.AutoScrollMinSize = new
System.Drawing.Size(0, 0);
this.printPreviewDialog1.ClientSize = new
System.Drawing.Size(400, 300);
this.printPreviewDialog1.Document = this.printDocument1;
this.printPreviewDialog1.Enabled = true;
this.printPreviewDialog1.Icon =
((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("printPreviewDialog1.Icon")));
this.printPreviewDialog1.Name = "printPreviewDialog1";
this.printPreviewDialog1.ShowIcon = false;
this.printPreviewDialog1.Visible = false;
//
// richTextBoxPrintCtrl1
//
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.Cursor =
System.Windows.Forms.Cursors.Default;
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.Font = new
System.Drawing.Font("Courier New", 9.75F, System.Drawing.FontStyle.Regular,
System.Drawing.GraphicsUnit.Point, ((byte)(0)));
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.Location = new
System.Drawing.Point(0, 91);
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.Name = "richTextBoxPrintCtrl1";
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.ReadOnly = true;
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(973,
448);
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.TabIndex = 19;
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.TabStop = false;
this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1.Text = "PowerADvantage Group
Membership Log";
//
// frmGroupMembershipLog
//
this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(6F, 13F);
this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(972, 600);
this.Controls.Add(this.richTextBoxPrintCtrl1);
this.Controls.Add(this.btnApply);
this.Controls.Add(this.txtMembership);
this.Controls.Add(this.btnFinish);
this.Controls.Add(this.statusStrip1);
this.Controls.Add(this.btnPrevious);
this.Controls.Add(this.msMembership);
this.Icon =
((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("$this.Icon")));
this.MaximizeBox = false;
this.Name = "frmGroupMembershipLog";
this.StartPosition =
System.Windows.Forms.FormStartPosition.CenterScreen;
this.Text = "frmGroupMembershipLog";
this.FormClosed += new
System.Windows.Forms.FormClosedEventHandler(this.frmGroupMembershipLog_FormClosed);
this.Load += new
System.EventHandler(this.frmGroupMembershipLog_Load);
this.msMembership.ResumeLayout(false);
this.msMembership.PerformLayout();
this.ResumeLayout(false);
this.PerformLayout();

}

#endregion

private System.Windows.Forms.MenuStrip msMembership;
private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem fileToolStripMenuItem;
private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem tsPrint;
private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem tsSaveAs;
private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem helpToolStripMenuItem;
private System.Windows.Forms.Button btnPrevious;
private System.Windows.Forms.StatusStrip statusStrip1;
private System.Windows.Forms.Button btnFinish;
private System.Windows.Forms.TextBox txtMembership;
private System.Windows.Forms.Button btnApply;
private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem tsPageSetup;
private System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem tsPagePreview;
private System.Windows.Forms.PrintDialog printDialog1;
private System.Windows.Forms.PageSetupDialog pageSetupDialog1;
private System.Drawing.Printing.PrintDocument printDocument1;
private System.Windows.Forms.PrintPreviewDialog printPreviewDialog1;
private RichTextBoxPrintCtrl.RichTextBoxPrintCtrl
richTextBoxPrintCtrl1;


}
}



--
Thanks.

[...]
I now have a new problem though. The text are displayed just fine in the
rtb but when I do a printpreview or the actual print, each line of text
is
only 5 characters. Is it some property that I'm not setting correctly?

I don't know. Again, you didn't post any code that would illustrate what
you're doing.

Is the text clipped or wrapped? The answer to that should lead you to
looking more at the printing code (clipped) or the RTB WM_FORMATRANGE
usage (wrapped). No guarantees, but that's the way I'd lean. For sure,
the first thing you need to do is step line-by-line through all of the
code involved, to make sure that all the calculations and results come out
as you'd expect.

Pete

 

[Peter Duniho]

Sigh.

You didn't post a concise-but-complete sample of code. In particular, the
code you posted doesn't compile without significant modification, nor is
it the minimal code that would be required to demonstrate the problem.

And after all that, the problem turns out to be that you for some unknown
reason modified the original code provided on Microsoft's web site, in
spite of a clear comment explaining why it was the way it was.

In particular, this line:

//Convert the unit used by the .NET framework (1/100 inch)
//and the unit used by Win32 API calls (twips 1/1440 inch)
//private const double anInch = 14.4;
private const double anInch = 1;

You have basically removed the conversion required between the coordinate
systems in use, which of course results in you passing incorrect page
dimensions when rendering the text box. With the wrong page dimensions,
of course the text wraps in the wrong place.

Next time, when someone suggests that you step line-by-line through the
code to verify that everything is being calculated as it should, please do
that rather than wasting their time with code that doesn't compile,
includes a lot of extraneous things, and which you haven't bothered to do
the basic debugging steps with in the first place.

Thanks,
Pete

 

[Guest]

The same problem exists before I modified that line below. I only modified
that line because it wasn't woking correctly and wanted to see if that would
make a difference. Since I'm getting error in PrintPreview so I was thinking
maybe the code isn't from MS web site but it's from not setting one of the
control's property correctly. I will try walk through the Actual Print
event's code.
private const double anInch = 14.4;
I'm not sure the extent of the code that I should post. My application has
a lot more code in it but I thought I should only just post the event handler
code that deals with the printing and the print preview. I guess what you're
asking is for me to build a new separate project that will compile and
demonstrate the problem that I'm having ,is that correct?

 

[Guest]

I don't know what happened here. I changed the line back to its original
code of
anIcn = 14.4 and it's now working correctly in both Print preview and the
Print. Thank you and I'm sorry that I frustrated you. I will try to do
better in providing more complete code for my future questions.