Print Dialogs

Print dialogs let the user print documents, and these dialogs are supported with the PrintDialog class. Before displaying a Print dialog, you set the Document property of a PrintDialog object to a PrintDocument object, and the PrinterSettings property to a PrinterSettings object of the kind set by Page Setup dialogs.

When the dialog is closed, you can print the document by assigning the PrintDialog object's PrinterSettings property (which returns a PrinterSettings object as configured by the user, indicating the number of copies to print, the printer to use, and so on) to the PrinterSettings property of the PrintDocument object and use the PrintDocument object's Print method to actually print the document. Here's how that might look in code:

Private Sub MenuItem1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
    ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MenuItem1.Click
    PrintDialog1.Document = PrintDocument1
    PrintDialog1.PrinterSettings = PrintDocument1.PrinterSettings
    PrintDialog1.AllowSomePages = True
    If PrintDialog1.ShowDialog = DialogResult.OK Then
        PrintDocument1.PrinterSettings = PrintDialog1.PrinterSettings
        PrintDocument1.Print()
    End If
End Sub

You can see a Print dialog in Figure 9.7—this one comes from the Printing example on the CD-ROM.

Figure 9.7: The Print dialog.